<B>By Deepa BHOOKHUN</B>

André Chaussures? Vogue? BHS? In Mauritius? Awesome!

I never thought I?d see the day when huge foreign companies that sell nice stuff ? to say the least ? would come to Mauritius.

No, really. I mean, it?s like what are the chances that Céline Dion comes to Mauritius for a concert?

Nil, I say. Shame. For me, that is.

You can laugh away if you want.

The market?s too small and besides, who would payRs 4,000 for a concert ticket? And who would splash twice the salary of a textile industry worker on a pair of expensive shoes?

Oh for sure, many people would ? otherwise the companies wouldn?t be here, would they ? but how many is ?many??

I know a few people who have paid a visit to the latest DIY shop that opened a few weeks ago and those people are by no means what you would call ?poor? people ? after all, we only have some 7,000 odd poor people in the country, don?t we? ?

And they still went home empty-handed.

They all said the same thing: the prices are exorbitant.

Not at all what you would expect to pay in a DIY store.

So if people who earn more than double the projected income per capita by the end of the year ($7000 ? that?s also another joke, by the way) find those new stores expensive, who then are these foreign companies targeting?

And we are not talking about designer stores here ?

BHS is your regular family store in Britain.

Mr Bricolage is the DIY store you go to when you don?t have a big budget. In Mauritius, you go there only if you have money to throw away.

See, that?s the problem with nice theories like ?opening up the economy?.

Economists are brilliant at theories ? nice, bold theories that increase growth, that help reduce inflation that creates wealth that creates jobs. Great because we need this.

But what we also need is an economy that doesn?t exclude people while it grows.

Those big stores we are talking about have not decided to open their branches in Mauritius because they have heard that, by the end of the year, Mauritians will earn $7,000.

No sir. They are here because of the very rich Mauritians, the expatriates and whoever else will come and settle here thanks to the opening up of the economy.

So while big foreign companies will be making profits because the government has created a market for them, a substantial number of people will feel more and more excluded because they also, would like to go and buy nice stuff at nice stores. They also, would like to eat in nice restaurants. They can?t though because they can?t afford to.

Remember the tide of violence that swept South Africarecently? Do you know why that happened? Because leaders failed to see what had been happening to ordinary people while they lead. Because ordinary people, under pressure, whether it be hunger or frustration, behave badly.

While others buy expensive shoes.