What Did Trees in Beau-Vallon and Our Savings Culture Have in Common?

Another bleak reality is the decline in national savings rate. It has fallen from an average of 26 percent of GDP in the period 1996-2000 to 24.6 percent in the period 2001-2005. CSO is forecasting a very low savings rate of 19.5 percent for 2005. Here again, we must be utterly concerned. 

Rama Sithanen, 2005

... il a fait beaucoup de tort à la culture d'épargne des Mauriciens en enlevant les exemptions fiscales sur les prêts immobiliers ainsi que les études supérieures de leurs enfants, 

tout en taxant les intérêts bancaires.

Dan Bundhoo, 2014

Simple. They had gone through plenty but survived. There's a word for this and it is resilience. Granted it's a term that has been abused in Mauritius over the past decade. But it's easy to show what it really means. As RAFAL wrote about the resilience of trees recently I will focus on our savings culture. 

Why Our Youth Don't Have A Skills Mismatch

Simply because technology has flattened every single learning curve. So anybody who has recently graduated should be able to help push Mauritius forward provided a reasonable number of opportunities are available. This will happen only if certain conditions are met. Like energy prices -- a major building block of GDP -- shouldn't stay disconnected from their world prices. Something which unfortunately happened for way too long.

We want our youth to transform the skills they've acquired -- and will keep on acquiring -- into meaningful outcomes fast because otherwise they will lose confidence in themselves and their gifts will go to waste. And then it will be everybody's loss. This will also depend on the quality of policy-making at Government House. The latter just like the private sector -- large and small -- must make good bets. Because that's the way they will create wealth or value. Which is about getting out more than what is put in. For example the CEB can float a bond, invest into a power project and then make a reasonable profit. Or sell clean electricity at competitive prices which will help Mauritius Inc. make one. The Passport Office can get us our travel documents fast making us save time which is another name for money. Similarly private sector companies can create value by moving upmarket or into new industries which are compatible with the standards of living that Mauritians reasonably aspire to. Not with those of the cheapest foreign worker available.

The other side of the coin is that Government and private sector companies routinely destroy value. And they do that -- to be sure there are fans of Marx too in there --  in many ways. We've seen how the STC can mysteriously lose billions and then lose a couple of billions more. Bosses of private companies may also put the enjoyment of super cars before the survival of their firm. Or allow themselves to be infected with hubris and start believing that this time it's different and that crises like those that happened in South East Asia in 1997 and elsewhere can never happen in Mauritius. Because we're the land of the lazy Dodo. Of course.