Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
Before I begin, I would like to thank the CII for inviting me here today.
The Maldives has developed something of a special relationship with the CII over the past year.
We have developed a warm friendship with you all.
We have been grateful for your invitations to India.
And we have been proud to receive you in the Maldives.
There are a couple of friends I would especially like to thank.
Mr Tarun Das has been the mover and a shaker of the CII and has helped bring the organisation and the Maldives together.
Ambassador Kuldip Sahdev is also a close friend of the Maldives and has been instrumental in building our relationship.
I thank you all for your support.
And I look forward to our friendship developing and deepening in future.
I am here today with one simple, loud and clear message: the Maldives is open for your business.
Since my administration took office, just over a year ago, we have introduced unprecedented market-based reforms.
We are privatizing great swathes of our economy.
We are encouraging foreign direct investment and public private partnerships, to reform state-run companies.
And we are reducing the size of the government itself, slashing public sector bureaucracy and cutting unnecessary red tape.
We are, in short, rolling back the frontiers of the state and embracing free market enterprise.
Investors in the Maldives do very well.
I always remember the tale of an Italian gentleman, who first came to the Maldives twenty years ago with $20,000 in his pocket.
His Maldivian investments are now worth $20 million.
Tourism, in particular, has prospered.
And the Maldives has become world famous for luxury resorts and picture-postcard paradise.
To my mind, tourism has prospered precisely because the government has, for the most part, left it alone.
Tourism has prospered because private businesses have been free to manage their resorts as they see fit.
Other industries were not so lucky.
Three decades of authoritarian rule, resulted in a bloated and cumbersome state.
Three decades of big government allowed the state to spread its tentacles into almost every area of business and society.
The Maldives now has a huge bureaucracy, with almost 10% of the population employed by the government or a government run firm.
For three decades, the dynamism of the Maldivian economy was hindered, by the suffocating regulations of a meddlesome state.
And the freedom and enterprise of the Maldivian people were stifled, by a repressive dictatorial regime.
Thankfully, the future of our country looks bright.
The Maldives has recently made a smooth, stable and peaceful transition to a modern, multi-party democracy.
A new constitution enshrines the separation of powers between the executive, legislature and the judiciary.
Adherence to the rule of law means citizens can enjoy fundamental freedoms.
And recent laws decriminalising defamation has helped free the media to play its role as the Forth Estate.
By rolling back state power, we have emancipated people to play a full and active role in society.
And just as individuals need liberty to progress…
...I believe business also requires freedom to prosper.
Our goal is therefore to rebalance the relationship between the public and the private sectors.
With our economic reforms, we believe we can curtail the state, free private enterprise and build a prosperous Maldives.
Our economic reforms involve three crucial parts:
Firstly, we are committed to financial prudence and long-term stability.
This means we have scrapped the reckless policies of the past, which saw money printed to finance a growing budget deficit.
Instead, the Maldives is working with the IMF and the World Bank to ensure we do not spend more than we can afford.
And we are reducing our budget deficit to sensible and sustainable levels.
The second plank of our economic reforms is a radical policy of privatisation and public-private partnerships.
We do not believe that the state can, or should, play the role of business.
Examples from abroad show that privately run firms tend to be more efficient, more profitable and provide better customer service and job satisfaction.
We are therefore offering private parties the chance to invest in a wide range of state run enterprises.
The third part of our economic reforms involves cutting red tape and reducing government bureaucracy.
In the past, the government offered people jobs not because there was work that needed doing.
The government offered people jobs as bribes; to remain obedient to a repressive regime.
There are now more civil servants that there is work to be done.
Many government employees are under worked; chained to demoralising jobs.
Our administration will therefore reduce the number of civil servants by one third within two years.
And loans will be provided for those who leave the civil service, to help people acquire new skills and set up small businesses.
We make these changes because we believe in the rights of the individual, over the regulation of government.
We implement these reforms because we believe in the dynamism of the market, over the indecision of the state.
We make this shift because we believe in business over bureaucracy.
Of course, we also recognise the need for government.
A government’s rightful place is to correct market failure, such as preventing environmental pollution.
And government should also provide a safety net for the most vulnerable people in society.
Since assuming office, we’ve introduced an old age pension for over 65s, to liberate elderly citizens from the bondage of begging for basic needs.
And we have started to implement a universal health insurance scheme, so every Maldivian can work freely without having to fear the cost of falling sick.
Ladies and gentlemen,
We are in the process of opening up the Maldivian economy.
To understand the scale of this liberalisation, I would invite you to visit the Invest Maldives website.
Invest Maldives, the government’s foreign investment agency, is offering opportunities across the country.
In housing, we are offering firms the chance to build homes and apartments for Maldivians, as well as luxury villas targeted at international markets.
In education, we are seeking partners to design, build and operate new schools and higher education facilities.
In health, we are inviting private companies to manage and expand our hospitals.
The list goes on.
From water and sewerage, to aquaculture and fishing, the message is the same: we are open for business.
Many Indian companies have already profited from the Maldives.
The Taj Group, for instance, has two outstanding resorts.
And the bonds between the Maldives and India are becoming stronger.
We have recently signed agreements with Suzlon to build a wind farm in the south of the country…
...and we have signed a deal with GMR to develop an international airport in the North.
So, I shall soon return to paradise.
And there is good news: you can come too.
Maldivian airlines will soon start direct flights between Male’ and Chennai.
The World Bank says the Maldives is the best place in South Asia to do business.
I invite you to come and find out for yourselves.
