by Hannah MAUDARBOCUS
25 February 2008
Port Louis — At this instant in time, Mauritius seems to be a most attractive and "eligible" place for investors and foreigners to nest.
Our apparently appreciating currency has little to contribute in that respect - if not to say the effect of depreciating foreign currencies on our Rupee. Mauritius can be described as a shelled and protected market for investors, and not any one of them, but one, which appeals to the elite, cream or niche of the market. The newly established but highly performing financial services have brought our reputation a level up, taking us away from our mere sand and sea destination for holiday seekers, to a small but valuable player in investment markets. Not withstanding the fact that we are among the best economies in Africa in terms of GDP per capita, foreign direct investment as well as political and social stability. We cannot exclude the phenomena of "Integrated Resort Schemes", which will boost the prices of our land, even in the least attractive coastal areas in Mauritius. Seen from that perspective, a very bright future seems to be lying ahead for Mauritius - irrelevant of the caprices of our government and opposition.
However, what might go wrong in this plan made in heaven?
Our infrastructure is developing rapidly and Mauritius is moving at a fast pace, but we seem to lack the human capital and knowledge to support this development. This can be blamed on some anomalies in our system, for instance the government budget on the education of our annual laureates exceeds the whole budget attributed to the UOM. And we all know that the majority of this elite are most likely to settle abroad, even though their initial idealistic ambition is to return to their mother land to serve the nation. Many such inconsistencies exist within this well monitored system. Mauritius could end up being like economies of European countries where most of the wealth in held by a small minority of the population (is it not already the case?), but even worse by FOREIGNERS! Another aspect is that the more highly paid jobs go to imported labour, while the lower scale of salary earners are the only trade off Mauritians will enjoy from this amazing growth. Not to mention the lack of quality consciousness as service providers in our financial sector. This is demonstrated on simple tasks like the average days it takes to open a bank account to more complex issues as the number of weeks (years??) for government approval of business plans worth millions. These little matters can be very frustrating for high calibre investors. Again financial institutions, banks, management companies and other affiliated corporate bodies need to be aware of their handling of investment portfolios. One scandal is enough to bring down the whole sector for quite a long time.
Another major risk factor underpinning our prospective and actual development is our support activities to these major projects, which are of a low and substandard nature. An imagery of that would be very much the same as offering your guest tea when they visit, but not having the cup to put the tea in. This very much comes to the same as not serving them. By this is meant, that we lack support infrastructure. Simple examples of that would be: facility of obtaining a visa for business and corporate travellers, poor transport infrastructure, user deterrent system, red tape and an inexhaustible list of seemingly unimportant components of the economy.
It is always advisable to look at things in a very critical perspective, so that we can create a risk-free economy in line with the expectations of interested parties.
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