Seychelles signs new fisheries agreement with Mauritius |27 February 2017

Seychelles and Mauritius have signed a new fisheries agreement taking into account the “unfairness” of the previous accord as well as the current development in the fisheries sector.

The revised agreement was signed on February 20, 2017 in Seychelles, after three rounds of negotiations, by the Seychelles Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries Michael Benstrong and the Mauritian Minister for Ocean Economy, Marine Resources, Fisheries and Shipping, Premdut Koonjoo.

Historical background

The first fishing agreements between Seychelles and Mauritius for Seychelles flagged vessels to fish in Mauritius waters and for Mauritius flagged vessels to fish in Seychelles waters were signed in Port Louis, Mauritius on March 11, 2005 by the Seychelles Minister for Foreign Affairs.

The agreements were for initial periods of two years and were automatically renewable for further periods of two years, thereafter. From the time of the signing of these agreements, the fee for Mauritius vessels fishing in Seychelles waters was set at US $70,000 per year. On the other hand Seychelles flagged vessels licensed to fish in Seychelles waters was US $60,000 per year.

However, the license fee for the Seychelles vessels fishing in Seychelles waters was subsequently raised to US $90,000 per year per vessel while the Mauritius flagged vessels remained to date at US $70,000 per year. Thus the current license fee under the last agreement was more favourable to the Mauritians than our own vessels fishing in our waters.

In December 2013, the then Ministry of Natural Resources initiated the process for the termination of the current fishing agreement with Mauritius and for new negotiations to take place for a new agreement taking into account the unfairness, and the current development in the fisheries sector. For various reasons including logistics, the first round of negotiations only took place in February 2015 in Seychelles.

The revised agreement signed last Monday makes provision, among other things, for the following:

• The establishment of a Joint Committee which will among others, monitor implementation of the agreement, act as the body for amicable settlement of any disputes, make recommendations for the review of the technical provisions and review the fishing opportunities based on the scientific advice;
• 15 purse seiners and 20 long-liners with 7 supply vessels to fish in the two parties’ respective waters;
• The demarcation through provision of geographic coordinates by the two parties, the permissible fishing areas; and
• Communication requirements for entering and leaving the waters of the two parties.

The agreement also determines license fees to be paid by the vessels of the two countries for fishing in the other party’s waters.

The negotiations thus also included discussions over the method for determining the license fees. While Seychelles has been pushing to have a license fee based on catch and thus having a fee per metric tonne of fish caught, Mauritius preferred the flat fee which is unrelated to the catch.

In view of reservations from the Mauritian delegations in terms of the preparedness for an immediate shift in licensing method and effectively value of the license fees, and with a view to allowing for continuation of the fishing activities of the vessels in question, it was finally agreed that the flat rate method would be used for this agreement.

However, the agreement will be for a period of only two years, instead of the three years that was intended at the beginning of the negotiations. This arrangement thus gives the opportunity to both parties to do the ground work to smoothly shift to the newly proposed method of computation of license fees, based on volume of catch at the time of expiry of the newly signed agreement.

This approach therefore allows for the formal continuation of the fishing activities by the respective flagged vessels of the two parties without the uncertainty of whether this would be renewed or not, thus allowing for better planning by the operators.

As a result of the new agreement, the Mauritian flagged purse seiners will now pay a license fee of US $110,000 per vessel per annum (up from US $70,000) and their long liners will pay a fee of US $30,000 each per annum (up from US $24,000), to fish in Seychelles waters. This represents increases of 57% and 25% respectively, in the license fees for the two types of vessels.

On the other hand, Seychelles’ purse seiners will pay license fees of US $24,000 (up from US $20,000) and long liners will pay US $30,000 (up from US $24,000) per annum. Both representing an increase of 25% each.

The continuation of the fishing activities by the Seychelles and Mauritius flagged vessels will not only ensure smoother supply of tuna to the Indian Ocean Tuna canning factory but there are other important benefits to the local economy, namely; stevedoring and handling services by local companies, port dues and berthing fees, landing and processing of tuna and by-catch for the local processors and diversification of the fisheries value addition locally, among others. The calling to port of the purse seiners and the development of local ship chandlers also present the opportunity for local produce to find additional markets in the tuna fisheries sector.

To ensure that the two parties do indeed work towards having a new agreement with the reformed method of license fee computation, it was agreed that the parties will meet every six months alternately in Mauritius and Seychelles to analyse the data and develop the framework for the new licensing fee computation method based on volume of catch and hence the new Seychelles – Mauritius Fisheries Agreement which should come into effect in 2019 immediately upon the expiry of the newly signed agreement.