Seychelles to promote direct flights and maritme collaboration

Seychelles will promote direct air links and enhanced maritime collaboration with Sri Lanka, said Seychelles Minister of Natural Resources and Industry, Peter Sinon when he paid a courtesy call on Industry and Commerce Minister, Rishad Bathiudeen at the ministry premises recently.

He said that cargo aircraft coming from Sri Lanka need not return empty as Seychelles can supply abundant volumes of coconuts and related products, and high quality tuna fish at 'very competitive prices'. (Seychelles has theworld's second largest tuna processing and canning facility in the world with Indian Ocean Tuna (IOT) processing plant doing 700,000 mt tuna annually).

"We have good cinnamon, growing even in jungles but there are not many people to harvest it in the jungles. As a result, the cinnamon plant has become an invasive species for us," said Minister Sinon.

"We are struggling to find labour and are compelled to import labour for our cinnamon sector. But Sri Lanka has managed to process cinnamon well.

As for us, who would come to Seychelles to harvest our cinnamon which has now spread to the jungles?," he said.

Discussing his plans to adopt the Divineguma concept in Seychelles, Minister Sinon said, "I am excited. Minister Bathiudeen, I want you to send a consultative Divineguma delegation team to Seychelles.

I shall provide all facilities needed during their stay. I want to introduce the Divineguma model to the more than 8,000 people whose livelihoods we are trying to upgrade through community development schemes."

"Once we start, I will name our own program also 'Divineguma'. I want to incorporate the Divineguma model to the upcoming Seychelles National Agriculture Investment Program (SNAIP), a project costing more than $ 30m, to upgrade livelihoods. I have been searching for a suitable model and Divineguma is the answer. The SNAIP is facilitated for Seychelles by the African Development Bank, The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, and New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)."

Seychelles, which has the highest Human Development Index in Africa, wants to implement the Divineguma model at its earliest, to kick-start its agricultural revival.

Minister Bathiudeen said that Sri Lanka last year exported poultry to the value of $ 2.7m, strengthened by poultry output from Divineguma program.

"Due to the vision of Economic Development Minister, Basil Rajapaksa, we have successfully covered one million households last year and this year we are planning to expand the coverage to 2.5m households," said Minister Bathiudeen. "During the session, for the first time, Minister Bathiudeen and his officials facilitated Sri Lankan exporters to exchange and forge links with the visiting Seychelles delegation on doing business with each other," a ministry spokesman said.

Among the export sector representatives present were leading fruit and vegetable, seafood and poultry exporters.

Waven William, Seychelles' New Delhi based High Commissioner for Sri Lanka, Waven William, representatives of Sri Lanka's private sector exporters to Seychelles, Ministry Secretary Anura Siriwardena, high ranking officials of the ministry and EDB were present.

According to the Department of Commerce of Sri Lanka, in 2011, Sri Lanka's largest international investment partner was the Seychelles which invested $ 253m in Sri Lankan followed by India and Hong Kong at $ 147m and 139m respectively. In the same year, Sri Lanka's exports to Seychelles stood at $ 0.83m while imports were at $ 1.64m. The main products exported from Sri Lanka include tea and fishing vessels, and processed food products.