● <B>Higher building costs. </B>It will be a heavy blow for those who are now thinking of building a house or have just started? The 21% increase in the price of cement will have an impact on building materials such as blocks and other ?by-products? such as ?rock sand?, for instance. All companies importing cement agree that they have been faced with several increases recently ? particularly diesel and freight ? which will have an effect on their own products in the coming days. Moreover, they complain about the rise granted by the State Trading Corporation (STC) on the price of cement, as it will be difficult for them to absorb the additional costs. But the STC has not given in saying that it ?has tried to satisfy everyone?. The STC also added that the market will not suffer from any shortage despite the delay in the arrival of its own stock of 200,000 tons.

● <B>Hub for fake medicines. </B>Mauritius is in the limelight of foreign newspapers? but for the wrong reasons, it seems. The daily US paper Baltimore Sun mentions Mauritius as the hub for the world traffic of fake medicines. Steve Allen, an investigator for the pharmaceutical laboratory Pfizer, was the one to make the case public. Although the traffic is allegedly organised from the United Arab Emirates, fake medicines appear to transit through Mauritius before being supplied to Western countries like the United States. Last July, half a million Plavix pills were seized in Dubai ? some of which were said to contain cement traces ? but the authorities there said they came from Mauritius.

● <B>Textile companies fear competition. </B>Is the end of the revival in the textile industry already there? This is the main fear of the companies in view of the appreciation of the local currency. As the value of the rupee has been going up recently, the profits of some textile companies have already decreased while some are worried about their future. The director of the Mauritius Export Association, Danielle Wong, is meeting the director of the Bank of Mauritius, Rundheersing Bheenick, today to share her fears. She said that companies have already noticed a drop in the demand and may have difficulty remaining competitive.