Seychelles-Mauritius business forum to attract new ventures

Seychelles Port Capital of Victoria, the business centre of the Indian ocean archipelago (George Thande, Seychelles News Agency) 

(Seychelles News Agency) - Investors from the neighbouring Indian Ocean island nations of Seychelles and Mauritius will this week explore business opportunities that exist in their markets.

A Seychelles – Mauritius business forum under the theme “Creating New Dynamics for Business Facilitation” and a parallel trade fair will kick off Thursday April 24, at the International Conference Centre of Seychelles, in the capital of Victoria.

The organiser, the Seychelles Investment Board, says the idea of a business forum and trade fair between the two countries was discussed during President James Michel’s state visit to Mauritius in March 2012, as a way of expanding cooperation.

“We are concentrating on key sectors that Seychelles and Mauritius would like to develop including ICT, construction, the financial sector as well as trade especially of products made in Mauritius,” says SIB’s Chief Executive Rupert Simeon in an interview with SNA.

“Such forums create awareness between the respective countries, in this case of Mauritius and Seychelles. We are expecting to see the participation of the tourism sector, health, education, construction, fisheries, import/export as well as bunkering.”

Alongside general presentations, there will also be business to business meeting as well as the signing of agreements for cooperation between Mauritian and Seychellois companies in various fields.

Simeon said there are many Seychellois that have invested in other countries including Mauritius though SIB has no official record of the number of such ventures.

As for Mauritian investment in Seychelles this exists mainly in the form of partnerships, whereby he mentioned the fields of tourism and fisheries.

The SIB’s Chief Executive said that there hasn’t been any recent investment from Mauritius in Seychelles adding that foreign direct investment in the Indian Ocean archipelago is currently driven by the United Arab Emirates, followed by Russia, while Mauritius is either third or fourth down the line.

Seychelles’ first international business forum was held in Brussels in October 2010, since then several such forums have been organised.

For this year, the Seychelles-Mauritius forum is the third to be organised on Seychelles shores, following a Seychelles-South Korea and Seychelles-Sri Lanka forum.

An Indonesia – Seychelles and EU-Seychelles forum is also planned to take place in the Seychelles later this year while SIB is also planning to head to Sri Lanka and Shanghai - China.

In its promotional activity the Seychelles Investment Board is since March 1 more actively engaged in promoting the Seychelles financial sector in particular international offshore business services.