Seychelles mulls for direct air links with Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka has become the ship-building hub for Seychelles while it is also looking for direct air-links with Sri Lanka. "The strong interest Seychelles has for direct air-links with Sri Lanka is a promising development. This can help towards further enhancing the $ 2 m annual bilateral trade between both countries" said Industry and Commerce minister Rishad Bathiudeen.

"As Sri Lanka enters a new phase of development we are now working to make the country the economic hub of Asia. This is a good time to invest in Sri Lanka. Among the promising sectors that Seychelles business can invest are fisheries, ship-building, and tourism," Minister Bathiudeen said.

Responding to Minister Bathiudeen, Minister Paul Adams said: "I see many complementarities between both countries. Seychelles uses many sea vessels built in Sri Lanka. In fact, Sri Lanka has become our ship-building hub in the Indian Ocean. We use many Sri Lankan produced vessels in inter-island transport services. Colombo is also becoming a major marine hub for us due to the close proximity in comparison to South Africa and as Colombo harbour expands, it can help us to trade without unnecessarily anchoring at regional container ports, the exception being Salala Port in Oman which handles largest container vessels in the world.

Our shipping industry is looking for more and more medium and small scale vessels, rather than large scale vessels, to navigate in between our islands.

We are also keen on Sri Lanka's tourism and seafood. We are expecting 350000 tourists in the coming year and most tour operators in Seychelles want to prepare joint holiday packages combining Seychelles beaches and Sri Lanka's scenic tea hills, jungle safaris, and temples which are the most sought after locations in Sri Lanka by tourists exiting Seychelles and the Dubai hub. Our tour operators are using their previous experience in creating joint Seychelles-Africa tour package for this type of travel adventures.

We also need to enhance maritime collaboration between Sri Lanka, Seychelles, Mauritius, and Madagascar. More importantly, we want more and more seafood from Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan seafood is the tastiest we receive from among Asian countries. Our seafood importers are specially keen to import Sri Lankan sea cucumber, prawns, crabs and lobsters. We believe that establishing direct air-links between Seychelles and Sri Lanka will help our importers and also enhance levels of current bilateral trade."

According to the Department of Commerce, the total trade between Sri Lanka and Seychelles has been at a very low level over the years and from January to September 2011, bilateral trade stood at $ 2 m.

The main products exported from Sri Lanka include tea, fishing vessels,cereals and sausages and the main import products include fennel, coriander, and cummin. It is envisioned that gems and jewellery, furniture and plastic products have exports potential in the Seychelles market.