Seychelles should keep on making ‘positive breaking news’ |21 July 2016

“In a world full of negative ‘breaking news’, let us make sure that the only ‘breaking news’ Seychelles makes are of a positive nature in the interest and to the glory of our people.”

These are the words of the founding President of Seychelles James R. Mancham after he attended the opening of the African Import-Export Bank (Afreximbank) seminars yesterday morning at the Savoy Hotel conference centre in Beau Vallon, Mahé, which are being attended by more than 300 delegates, representing the banking and financial world of the African continent.

The event was being hosted by the Seychelles Minister for Finance, Trade and the Blue Economy, Jean-Paul Adam jointly with the Governor of the Central Bank of Seychelles, Caroline Abel.
After attending the event yesterday morning, Mr Mancham wrote the following which he forwarded to this newspaper:

“Only last week, I had told members of the Board of INSEAD in Paris, France, which is the leading Business School of the world, that the ‘Seychelles is a small country thinking tall’, as we discussed the prospect of INSEAD becoming associated with the Seychelles School of Business Studies of the University of Seychelles as a hub to promote and create more entrepreneurs in Africa.

“No doubt most of the delegates at this week’s important rendez-vous have successful entrepreneurial background and will accept my argument that more African entrepreneurs are needed if Africa is to benefit more and more from its vast economic potential.

“Most of our people do not realise that the African Import-Export Bank is in fact ‘a very big fish swimming in our waters’ today. Headquartered in Cairo, Egypt, with the primary objective of promoting and financing trade within the African continent and trade within Africa and other continents – the bank, in year 2013, had a total asset of more than US $4.4 billion which netted in that year a revenue of US $20.5 million.

“It is indeed a tribute to Seychelles that the bank’s shareholders decided that their 23rd Annual General Meeting should be held here in Seychelles under the presidency of the bank’s new President, Dr Benedict Oramah.
“Certainly, the decision to meet here echoes an appreciation of the fact that we are indeed ‘a small country thinking tall’. As a senior executive of the bank stated in his introductory remarks, ‘We did not come to Seychelles with bathing suits, goggles and flippers but with notebooks, files, ipad and computers’.

“The meeting of the Afreximbank in Seychelles will of course give special resonance to Seychelles’ Blue Economy concept for a sustainable future. Be it remembered that although our islands are small from a landmass standpoint, the Seychelles coastal zones under the Law of the Sea Convention, gives us a maritime zone as large as the Federal Republic of Germany.

“The meeting of the Board and shareholders of the Afreximbank in Seychelles is no small business. Once again, Seychelles makes headline news internationally.

In this world of rapid changes and conflicts towards an unknown future, things do not just happen. More often than not they are made to happen when people of vision and goodwill see an opportunity and decide to work together to turn vision into reality. Once an edifice has been created it is always good to be able to look back and to know that we have shared in its creation and bring about a level of prosperity to our nations.

“In this context, one must appreciate the hard work which the Minister for Finance, Trade and the Blue Economy Jean-Paul Adam, Minister for Investment, Entrepreneurship Development and Business Innovation Michael Benstrong and the Governor of the Central Bank of Seychelles Caroline Abel, who under the blessing and direction of President James A. Michel, have been able to induce and to seduce the directors of the Afreximbank to hold this important conference here.

“In recognition of the bank’s appreciation, it is not surprising that Minister Adam, will be voted in as the next chairman of the bank – and once more echoing the fact that ‘we are indeed a small country thinking tall’.
“In a world full of negative ‘breaking news’, let us make sure that the only ‘breaking news’ Seychelles makes are of a positive nature in the interest and to the glory of our people.”

 Mr Mancham among guests and delegates in a souvenir photograph at yesterday’s seminar