Seychelles, Cyprus to propel relations to greater heights |05 July 2018

Seychelles and Cyprus are committed to taking their bilateral relations to greater heights.

This came out at the fourth session of the Seychelles-Cyprus Intergovernmental Commission on economic, scientific, technical and industrial cooperation which officially came to a close yesterday with the signing of the agreed minutes.

The session, which started on Tuesday, was co-chaired on the Seychelles side by the director general for Foreign Policy Division Lindy Ernesta and on the Cypriot side by the director of Planning, Directorate for European Programmes Coordination and Development Georghia Solomonidou-Christofidou.

The same officers were the ones to sign the agreed minutes in the presence of the high commissioner of the Republic of Cyprus to the Seychelles Andreas Panayiotou, Seychelles’ secretary of state for Foreign Affairs Ambassador Barry Faure as well as the Cypriot and Seychellois delegations.

In her closing remarks, Mrs Ernesta said that the meeting reaffirms the common interests, values and long bilateral ties that are the foundation of the strong relationship between the two countries.

Seychelles and Cyprus established diplomatic relations 42 years ago on July 1, 1976, following Seychelles' independence.

July 1 also marks the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Intergovernmental Commission which is used to review bilateral political and economic relations and the progress achieved in the various areas of cooperation since the last session of the joint commission in 2014.

Mrs Ernesta described the year's two-day working session as one which was "fruitful and very productive".

"The way forward, after this, is to follow up on the different areas of cooperation and we can only do with our counterpart from Cyprus and our local stakeholders," she stated.

"We have decided to take whatever actions necessary to propel the Seychelles-Cyprus relationship to greater heights, therefore, we look forward to consolidating our bilateral cooperation based on our long historical ties during our next session of the joint commission."

On her side, Mrs Solomonidou-Christofidou said that the working session was an opportunity to reflect on existing areas of cooperation such as trade and investment, health and education as well as potential areas for same.

"The encouraging thing is that the meeting identified potential areas of cooperation in new topics-- apart from the traditional ones -- such as e-commerce, regulatory issues for utilities and cybersecurity."

She further stated that the framework which has propelled the Seychelles-Cyprus relationship has generated seven agreements in total.

Two memoranda of understanding (MoU) between the Seychelles and Cyprus chamber of commerce is in the works and is expected to boost business-to-business relations and investments.

Mrs  Solominidou-Christofidou concluded by stating that Cyprus remains engaged in partnering with Seychelles to find positive catalysts of progress that will be mutually beneficial.

The parties, in demonstration of their commitment to increase cooperation, agreed to hold soon the Fifth Session of the Joint Commission in Cyprus, and the date will be mutually agreed through diplomatic channels.