President Danny Faure’s state visit to Kenya |07 April 2017
Seychelles-Kenya relations enter new stage after fruitful, historic visit
The Seychelles-Kenya political and business relations have entered a new stage as the leaders of both countries held in-depth and fruitful talks, summarised the development experience of the bilateral relations, and jointly planned their future cooperation.
This came about during President Danny Faure’s state visit to Kenya at the invitation of his counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta and during the visit, the two leaders held talks on different issues of mutual interests.
President Faure was received on Monday April 3, 2017 by Mr Kenyatta at the State House, Nairobi where he was accorded full military honours, including a 21-gun salute.
It was President Faure’s first state visit abroad after taking office on October 16, 2016 when he succeeded James Michel who resigned 10 months into a third five-year mandate.
President Faure described the state visit to Kenya as “historic” because Kenya is the first country that he has visited since he became head of state six months ago and quite interestingly both Messrs Faure and Kenyatta are their country’s fourth presidents.
This was the second such visit to Kenya by a sitting Seychelles head of state after former President France Albert Rene visited in 1990.
Following a tête-à-tête in President Kenyatta’s office, President Faure led his delegation in bilateral talks with the Kenyans aimed at bolstering cooperation between Seychelles and Kenya.
Both sides committed to maintaining close cooperation and strengthening trade and security in the Indian Ocean and eastern African region so as to push forward the bilateral strategic cooperative partnership.
President Faure also impressed on the need to reinvigorate efforts to scale up collaboration in mutual areas of interest identified.
The following decisions were taken during President Faure’s visit:
1. Combat against trafficking of illegal narcotics
• Decision for exchange of information and also exchange of intelligence between the National Drugs Enforcement Agency (NDEA) and its respective counterpart in Kenya.
• Decision to increase security at the ports and airports to curtail the inflow of illegal drugs into the respective countries.
2. Agriculture and Fisheries
Threemain areas of collaboration have been identified under the Fisheries and Agriculture umbrella. They are:
• Cooperation in fisheries, where Kenya wants to learn from Seychelles’ management of sustainable fishing, more specifically in the areas of joint monitoring control (to fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and piracy), establishing information protocol, exchange of experiences in food processing and sharing of knowledge in fish inspection and quality assurance to name a few;
• Horticulture, where Seychelles can import flowers, fresh fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices from Kenya;
• Livestock products (meat, poultry and dairy): The Seychelles delegation has met with representatives from Farmer’s Choice and Kenchick and it was decided that Seychelles will facilitate the importation of products from both companies in line with Seychelles’ efforts to lower the cost of living. Contact has already been made and it is all up to the demands of the Seychelles market.
The Cabinet Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of Kenya ………has expressed his interest to come to Seychelles to visit the tuna canning factory (IOT).
3. Technical assistance
• It was decided that Seychelles would recruit professionals from Kenya where there is a surplus, particularly in the education sector where there is a need in Seychelles for teachers of science, mathematics and social sciences subjects. Also for land surveyors, architects and project officers for the department of land use.
• To modernise the technical cooperation agreement signed in 1990 (done on Seychelles’ side)
4. Civil Aviation and Tourism
• Seychelles and Kenya will be looking at the joint marketing strategy of two-centre destinations, being the Safari brand of Kenya and the Beach brand of Seychelles.
• Tourism, Civil Aviation, Ports and Marine Minister Maurice Loustau-Lalanne on April 4, 2017 signed on behalf of the Seychelles Tourism Board a joint marketing agreement with Kenya Airways.
• After discussions with Kenya Airways, there is a possibility of having a cargo plane coming to Seychelles with 10 tonnes of goods (10 tonnes is the minimum amount for the plane to be commercially viable) and Seychelles needs to go and look at what it can export back to Kenya (also 10 tonnes) aside from fish so that it can also benefit from the arrangement and export its products to Kenya. Kenya Airways has decided to start the service of the cargo plane once the Seychelles’ side is ready.
• There is a possibility of Kenya Airways having more flights to Seychelles (from 4 to 5 and hopefully more later on). However this will depend on how good the marketing strategy for the joint holiday package is.
• Kenya Airways and the Kenya Tourism Board will be coming to Seychelles around mid-May for further talks which will lead to the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Seychelles Tourism Board and Kenya Tourism Board.
• The Ministry of Tourism of Kenya has provided Seychelles with a draft MoU on tourism development for consideration.
• It was decided that Seychelles re-looks into the MoU between Kenya’s Utali College and Seychelles Tourism Academy and increase exchanges.
5. Civil Society and establishment of partnership and exchanges
• Seychelles Chamber of Commerce and Industry chairman Wilson Nancy signed a MoU with his counterpart, Kiprono Kittony, the chairman of the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry on April 5, 2017.
• Citizens Engagement Platform of Seychelles (Ceps) chairman Jules Hoareau also signed a MoU with his counterpart from Kenya’s Non-Governmental Organisations Coordination Board, Faizul Mohammed Yusuf, on April 5, 2017.
6. Defence and security
• Decision for Seychelles to help Kenya build its coastguard so that it is prepared for the fight against illegal drugs trafficking, IUU fishing via joint patrolling, training and intelligence exchange.
7. Parliamentary diplomacy and exchange
• It was decided that there would be exchanges between the two parliaments.
8. Invitation for President Uhuru Kenyatta to visit Seychelles
• President Faure extended a formal invitation for President Uhuru Kenyatta to visit Seychelles.
9. Bilateral joint commission
• It was decided that the first bilateral joint commission would take place in Seychelles in June or July 2017.
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The delegation
• Fisheries and Agriculture Minister Michael Benstrong
• Tourism, Civil Aviation, Ports and Marine Minister Maurice Loustau-Lalanne
• Foreign Secretary for the department of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Claude Morel
• Member of National Assembly for Anse Etoile, Ahmed Afif
• Member of National Assembly for Anse Royale, Sylvanne Lemiel
• National Drugs Enforcement Agency (NDEA) chief executive Kishnan Labonte
• Chairperson of the Citizens Engagement Platform (Ceps) Jules Hoareau
• Chairperson of the Seychelles Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI), Wilson Nancy
• Members of the national press corps
