OREANDA-NEWS. On March, 11, 2015, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded the Article IV consultation with Mauritius.

Mauritius has continued to grow at a moderate rate of 3.4 percent in 2015, as weak external demand, protracted decline in construction, and the collapse of a large financial conglomerate group more than offset the positive impact of favorable terms of trade. Inflation remains low (0.4 percent in January 2016), reflecting in part declining oil prices and shipping costs. Unemployment hovers around 8 percent, although it is higher among women and the youth. The external current account deficit narrowed to about 5 percent of GDP and international reserves increased to 6.5 months of imports, supported by continued capital inflows.

The monetary policy stance remains broadly appropriate against the backdrop of subdued inflation. The Bank of Mauritius reduced its key policy rate by 25 bps in November 2015, to 4.40 percent, in order to support the domestic economy, while making progress in mopping up excess domestic currency liquidity.

In the financial sector, credit growth is gradually recovering and overall, the banking system remains well capitalized. Nonetheless, domestic non-performing loans have been rising and provisioning has not kept pace with the decline in asset quality. In addition, the authorities face macro-financial challenges stemming from risk exposures and potential spillovers from the very large offshore sector and its sizeable inter-linkages with domestic banking activities.

The budgetary performance turned more prudent in 2015, reversing the deterioration of recent years. In 2015, both the overall consolidated deficit and the primary deficit remained below earlier budget projections, and improved relative to 2014. Nonetheless, public debt continued to increase (by more than 2 percentage points of GDP) due to the government’s interventions in the financial sector and the impact of the depreciating rupee on external debt.

The country’s statistical capacity continues to be strengthened as the authorities actively pursue efforts to improve the coverage of the offshore sector in official data, and to introduce a real estate price index.