East Africa: Mauritius Investors Eye to Penetrate EAC Market

PUBLISHED ON July 19th, 2016

East Africa: Mauritius Investors Eye to Penetrate EAC Market

Arusha — Industrial investors and other producers operating in Mauritius intend to penetrate the East African market and they plan to start off this initiative by staging a special manufacturer exhibition in Arusha next October.

That apparently has resulted from the working visit to the Indian Ocean Commission in Mauritius, by the Secretary General of the East African Community, Ambassador Liberat Mfumukeko, who has just concluded the trip there following an invitation by the Secretary General of the IOC, Mr Jean Claude de l’Estrac.

The Indian Ocean Commission (IOC) is a regional integration organization that has memberships of Mauritius, Comoros, Seychelles, Madagascar and France.

The IOC now wants to work closely with the East African Community, according to an official statement from the EAC Headquarters in Arusha.

Apart from visiting IOC, Amb Mfumukeko also seized the opportunity to market EAC to the Mauritius Private Sector stakeholders, including meeting with the Mauritius Chamber of Agriculture; Mauritius Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Enterprise Mauritius; Mauritius Investment Authority; Business Mauritius; and Mauritius Export Association.

As it happens, almost all the stakeholders met expressed the need to explore investment and business opportunities between Mauritius and the EAC Partner States. Mauritius exports 400,000 tonnes of sugar annually.

The Mauritius Chamber of Agriculture and several other private sector players expressed their readiness to penetrate the EAC market and urged the Secretary General to link them with the East African Business Council (EABC), the private arm of the East African Community, in order to strengthen collaboration in trade, investment and mutual cooperation.

In order to initiate the collaboration, Enterprise Mauritius is set to organize a visit and an Exhibition to the EAC in October 2016 for more than 15 key Mauritius Manufacturers. The visit and exhibition will take place in Arusha, which is the headquarters for the East African Community.

The Mauritius Board of Investment has also invited the Investment Promotion Authorities and Agencies in the EAC Partner States for a Networking Conference from 20th to 21st September 2016 to be held in Mauritius.

To cement the collaboration, the Mauritius Private Sector has expressed the need to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the EAC. The Africa Centre of Excellence for Business (ACEB) has pledged to develop an EAC Handbook on Opportunities that will serve as a marketing tool to underpin the collaboration.

Source: All Africa

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