often quite lackadaisical when it comes to settling their dues. it needs to be recognised that msmes often act as ancillaries to large industries, and their cash flows are lumpy. the business orientation of large industries often affects the msmes directly, in turn hampering the recycling of funds and business operation of msme units. banks need to take a proactive view, carefully analyzing the linkages of the msme units, when sanctioning funds. the existing provisions of the interest on delayed payment act, 1998 for these entities have been suitably modified taking on board their unique characteristics. in addition, banks have been advised to sanction separate sub - limits within the overall limits sanctioned to the corporate borrowers for meeting payment obligations in respect of purchases from msme sector. the parliament has passed the factoring regulation bill that is expected to address delays in payment and liquidity problems of micro and small enterprises. i am sure that these bis central bankers ’ speeches measures will contribute in no small measure towards alleviating the extant constraints that plague this sector. mobilising resources 27. as we have seen, country needs enormous resources for its development. how do we raise them? banking sector has a major role here, in mobilizing the savings of the people. as at end march 2014, the scheduled commercial banks had mobilized deposits to the tune of 76 trillion. there are 146 scheduled commercial banks ( including the regional rural banks ) in the country, with more than 1. 2 lakh branches undertaking this activity. however, to support economic growth, we need to reach out more and hence there is a need for more banks to be functioning in india. not just more banks, perhaps we need more variety of banks. i am not talking about public, private, foreign bank variety here. i am talking about the variety of functions that they will undertake, the niche in which they want to excel. accordingly, the reserve bank has decided to license more banks. two licenses we have given recently. we intend to offer this on tap basis. we are working on new set of guidelines for both full service commercial banks and differentially licensed banks. we hope that with more number of players, the banking sector will mobilize more resources for funding faster economic growth, will bring in financial inclusion and thereby support inclusive growth in a sustainable way. conclusion 28. i have touched upon several issues that are of contemporary relevance and are expected to remain important for quite some time in

##mittances will be maintained for a long time and we may be commissioning a national survey to help us collect this information. one thing that we would definitely like to see is these funds being channelled to investment projects. it is always good for our future generation if these funds are spent on productive purposes. there has been a lot discussed about the fiji economy recently at the national economic summit. economic growth has averaged around 2. 4 percent over the past 5 years and is expected to average around 2. 7 percent in the next 3 years. but we know that we can do better especially when we benchmark fiji's performance against the pacific and some asian economies. investment is growing with momentum coming from the private sector. tourism is doing well. inflation remains low. we also have challenges ahead of us. these challenges can be resolved in the short term if we do the necessary things now. let me mention five of them : • first, the resource based sectors like gold, fisheries and forestry are underperforming. but there is potential with greater private public partnership, incentives offered by government, improved market access and value - adding initiatives. • the second is sugar - there are long standing issues with production, land leases and the withdrawal of preferential prices. however, there are projects that are now in place to revive the industry with reforms underway with support from the indian government, the european union and the asian development bank. these reforms will assist those who will displaced by the reforms and address the land tenure issue and raise farm productivity. • the third is our rising debt level - the strategic development plan for 2007 to 2011 has a strong commitment to lower the fiscal deficit to around 2 percent of gdp and this is expected to help bring the level of government debt down to 45 percent of gdp by 2011. • the fourth is reforms. we have been slow in implementing the necessary reforms in the public sectors and other sectors. • the last but not least is the balance of payments. exports must now drive growth. the mitigating factors are actions taken by the reserve bank to dampen consumption demand, government's fiscal consolidation plans in the sdp, development of a national exports strategy to increase fiji's exports and consideration of alternative sources of energy and import substitution for relevant and viable areas. we are aware of what we need to do. the greatest challenge is for us to now just do them. if we do them, i am confident that we can lift our economic performance for the benefit of everyone