What an Average Performance Would Look Like

For Mauritius. 5-6% real GDP growth, a stable currency of Rs25/USD and progressive taxation. Energy costs sensitive to decreases and increases in international prices. Unemployment brought down to 6-7% once it is measured properly. Underemployment heading south too. Savings reverting to average pre-Shaitanomics levels of 25%. Productive investments encouraged. Speculative investments discouraged. Reducing national frustration with some basic policies. Like proclaiming beaches as public spaces. Not deproclaiming any beaches. Preserving the views of Mauritius. Waging total war against diabetes. Not doing anything blatantly stupid like signing TISA. That too behind our backs.

And what would an economic miracle look like? I guess lowering the retirement age to 55 or less. Definitely a surging currency: a good start would be an average 2% annual appreciation against the USD from the base above. Along with higher growth rates. Plus an infinite number of thoughtful little things.

Miracle not happening for sure. In fact an average performance looks increasingly out of reach. There's too much ambient stupidity. But that can be reduced. Like by releasing the water sector reform report of the World Bank. For a start.

Dealing in USD Notes Improves Marginally

4 short days after, the difference between the best and worst deal to sell USD has collapsed by 21% (Rs250) to Rs928. That's because Shibani is giving 25 cents more for each of your dollars. And that has reduced its spread, still the largest on that BOM's page though, by 150bps to 7.87%.

Standard Bank still has the best deal for your dollars while Forex Direct will get more dollars for your rupees. The latter has also joined Africa's biggest bank as the place with the smallest spreads.

Best Places To Deal in USD Notes

If you wanted to sell USD1,000 yesterday then you should have headed to Standard Bank which was offering Rs32.68 for each dollar. That would have put Rs1,178 more in your pocket than if you had visited a Shibani Finance Foreign Exchange counter (we are assuming there are no service charges or that they are the same across dealers).

If you were into buying a thousand bucks instead then it would have been wiser to bring Rs34,080 to Forex Direct. If you wanted to buy them at the MPCB they would have cost you Rs870 more.

Standard Bank had also the smallest spread on USD notes: Rs1.63. Shibani had the largest at almost Rs3.

You can access all the rates in one page from the BOM's website.

Isn't this something l'ACIM or the ICP should have on a blog everyday to help citizens? The Competition Commission should also track the spreads to bring them within international levels.

Shiva Asks America to Settle Ecological Debt

The Illusion of Growth

The 5.3% percent growth rate Mauritius clocked in 2008 has to be taken with a big grain of salt. See, that's expressed in rupees and the picture changes quite a bit when you instead compute it in USD: -5.15%. That relatively large contraction is due to the 10% we lost with respect to the American currency. Singapore's corresponding number is 1.24% or a little better than the 1.1% it made in local terms thanks to an almost stable exchange rate with the USD in 2008.

Mauritius Slides into International Significance

Relative to Singapore complimentary of the bean-counting policies of Dr. Sithanen. That's what you conclude when you look at the annualised growth rates in USD for the two islands during the whole time he was Minister of Finance till December last.

Indeed, Singapore added an unbelievable 9.75% every year to the growth rate in USD Sithanen produced for Mauritius in his career. Or if you prefer Singapore posted a 7.72% growth rate on average while its currency appreciated against the American dollar while Sithanen's growth rate numbers don't look very good once you remove the effect of the persistent depreciation of our rupee that he's been orchestrating.