Rundheersing Bheenick: Thinking globally, banking locally, and branching out… Address by Professor Rundheersing Bheenick, Governor of the Bank of Mauritius, at the official opening of Grand Bay Branch of the HSBC, Grand Bay, 18 December 2007. *  *  *  I’m delighted to be here, opening a new branch, of a famous bank.
The history of the HSBC Group, in Mauritius, can be traced back to 1859, when the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China, established a branch in Port Louis. One well-known project, that this bank assisted in financing, was the construction of the Port Louis to Curepipe Section of the railway, in 1864. Those were the days!