Seychelles-Mauritius-New cooperation agreement signed |15 December 2005

The agreement, which Foreign Affairs Minister Patrick Pillay said, "will compliment existing projects and ongoing programmes and contribute to the further development of our respective countries," was signed at the end of the seventh session of the Seychelles-Mauritius Commission on Bilateral Cooperation (CBC).

The CBC agreement, signed for Mauritius by the visiting Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance and Economic Development, Rama Krishna Sithanen, covered a wide range of topics including the sharing of expertise in industry, legal affairs, social services, housing, environment, agriculture, education and information technology.

Speaking to journalists after the signing both Minister Pillay and Deputy Prime Minister Sithanen highlighted the importance of closer collaboration in the fields of tuna fisheries and tourism, as outlined in the CBC text.

Both men spoke of the relations between the two countries as evidence of solid South-South cooperation, "a vital element that helps small island economies, like ours, to overcome the great challenges of the world liberalisation," according to Deputy PM Sithanen.

And while tuna and tourism are vital components of both the Seychelles and Mauritian economies, Minister Pillay played down the competition between the two states, focusing instead on the benefits of cooperation.

"When you talk about tuna it doesn't affect Seychelles and Mauritius only – there is that need for us to be talking about this all the time and whoever takes the floor and voices out the concern must speak for the many," he said.

Pointing to the cooperation between Air Seychelles and Air Mauritius, Minister Pillay said "if you look at the example of the airline sector it is working exceedingly well as an element of the whole tourism package."
"I'm sure the same thing exists with regards to hotels," he added.

Launched in 1991 with an agreement on economic, technical and scientific cooperation, the last CBC round was held in Mauritius in 2003 and the next talks are slated for 2007.

Deputy PM Sithanen said, "We shall endeavour, as in the past, to monitor closely the implementation of this new bilateral cooperation programme and ensure that we meet successfully our target so that at the end of the day the lots of our people are improved."