Irish ambassador discusses cooperation with President Faure |08 March 2018

Exploring ways to strengthen Ireland and Seychelles’ support for each other in international forum,  boost their cooperation in different sectors like tourism, fisheries, the Blue economy … were but some of the topics that visiting Irish ambassador discussed with President Danny Faure at State House yesterday afternoon.

On his first visit since he presented his credentials as the first Irish ambassador to be accredited here last November, Ambassador Sherlock said he had a good discussion with President Faure.

Seychelles and Ireland have diplomatic links since October 1999.

Ambassador Sherlock said it was an opportunity to discuss cooperation between the two island States which share several common interests.

These, he said, are in such sectors as tourism, fisheries, the Blue economy…

“We discussed how our different institutions can support each other. The tourism industry in Ireland is one of our biggest and last year we recorded around 10 million visitors,” Ambassador Sherlock stated.

He said they spoke about finding ways to ensure our people derive maximum benefits from this industry and how to encourage more visitors from both countries to visit.

With regard to fisheries, Ambassador Sherlock said like Seychelles it is a sector which is very important to the Irish economy.

“We discussed how best to get value added from the sector,”  he added.

Exploring other ways as to how the two countries can further boost their cooperation was also discussed at length.

Ambassador Sherlock, who was a guest at President Faure’s  State-of- the-nation Address on Tuesday evening, said:

“It was a great opportunity to hear from the President some of the plans for the future and this afternoon we spoke in more details about some of those plans.”

Other matters which he said they spoke about was the two countries’ interests at the UN and in Geneva namely issues related to small island states to ensure the voices of small island states are heard and the two countries’ relations and cooperation with other states.

He stressed that as part of its foreign policy, Ireland puts a lot of emphasis on multilateralism and working together with other countries to have a stronger voice as many countries have similar issues that need to be addressed.

 Ambassador Sherlock, who is based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania leaves Seychelles this evening.