Rekin Pe Rod Randevu Ek Minis

Komye rekin bizin mor avan ki nu konpran ki ferm akwakol pe koz enn debalansman la natir? Ki nu pu fer kan rekin kumans atak dimunn lor enn frekans ki nu pankor truve? Nu pwavoy SMF elimin zot kuma nu ti fer ek sovsuri san ki sa regle nanyin?

Apre kifer nu bizin la ferm akwakol kan nu zonn maritim de milyon kilomet kare ek kominote peser lokal inn pare pwal lapes dan Nazareth ek Saya de Malha? Ki nu piatan pu donn zot kudme ki bizin?

Lion Ill-Advised To Beg on Tiger's Behalf

Like recently heading to L'Elysée for a godi or asking for scholarships and brains in Singapore. And whilst it's nice that India has drawn a map of our exclusive economic zone for free we're rich enough to pay for it and for everything else that we need to swiftly get our main national problems out of the way.

Yep, we must be quite rich and particularly crazy for having contracted Rs9 billion of foreign debt we don't need from the World Bank. Any guess how much interest we've been paying to this loan shark since 2006?

How to Fix our BOP Problems

That's kind of simple and, no, we don't need to depreciate our rupee as one ex-Governor has again been suggesting. We just need to reduce imports and increase exports. First, imports.

In 2008, we imported for Rs8.5 billion of fish and fish preparations, Rs3 billion of milk, Rs2 billion of vegetables and fruits, Rs1.5 billion of meat, Rs6 billion of road vehicles and Rs24 billion of petroleum products. That just doesn't sound right. If you recall, our exclusive economic zone is more than a 1,000 times larger than our land area or if you prefer each Mauritian can be supported by 1 square kilometre of sea (although it would make more sense to speak in terms of cubic kilometres, right?). So am positive we can cross that one out in a few years. There is a milk project underway so imports should decrease there too. As far as vegetables go we could adopt a few of Kreppalloo Sunghoon's recommendations: subsidise fertilizers, remove VAT on agricultural machinery and create a land bank to optimise the use of arable land. Likewise I am sure we can do something about all the meat we're bringing over from abroad by getting Rodrigues into the loop. Finally, we can reduce both the amount of fuel and road vehicles we import by having a sufficiently comfortable public transportation system. Having it run till 2 a.m. everyday will also make our economy more dynamic.

As far as exports go we should favour those that will provide meaningful jobs to a maximum of our fellow citizens. We don't need entrepreneurs of the sweat-shop variety whose greed knows no bounds.

Mr. Speaker, Sir, I now commend the Bill to the House.

P.S: BOP = Balance of Payments.

Good to Extend, Better to Optimise

Our Exclusive Economic Zone that is. Mauritius recently submitted, jointly with the Seychelles, for an additional 387,000 square kilometres – that's about 10,000 square kilometres larger than the size of Japan. That would add to the million plus square kilometres we have already but which is underutilised especially when you consider that we imported for about Rs8.5 billion of fish and fish preparations last year.

How large a flotilla would the Rs5 billion Sithanen granted to the dead sugar industry have purchased?

Food Crops and Fish Production Down Significantly From Their 2001 Levels

That's right. In 2001 we produced a little over 129,000 metric tonnes of food crops and almost 8,800 metric tonnes of fish. The corresponding numbers for 2007 are lower by a whopping 27% and 33% respectively. In fact the fish production numbers hovered within a narrow range of 8,800 and 9,400 tonnes between 2000 and 2006 before free-falling to less than 6,000 tonnes last year.

Shouldn't that be a cause for alarm in these times of agriflation and given that the eating habits of Mauritians are not exactly world-beaters? I am sure we can do a lot better with the world's 14th largest exclusive economic zone than to include it once in a while in a dumb speech usually appreciated while ingesting some oily gato pima.