Mauritius ready to partner private sector for expansion

Enterprise Mauritius, the apex Investment and Trade Promotion agency of Mauritius, says it is ready to offer the full spectrum of trade and investment opportunities for Ghanaian businesses to promote business expansion beyond the ECOWAS market, its CEO Mr. Dev Chamroo told B&FT in Accra.

“You have excellent stability. You lead the way in democracy. Your values and ours are almost the same, and I think there is ground for business to happen.

“The Mauritian entrepreneurs are looking for investment opportunities in Ghana in all priority sectors -- including services, agriculture, energy, and infrastructure sectors as well as in the area of higher added financial services.

“We would be interested in joint venture collaboration, strategic alliances, franchising, project financing among other businesses. There are avenues for collaboration and trade between Ghana and Mauritius, and it would be happy doing business with West African countries,” Mr. Chamroo said.

He was speaking on the sidelines of a two-day maiden edition of Mauritius Trade and Investment Forum in Accra being jointly organised by the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre and Enterprise Mauritius.

The forum, which brought together about 40 business executives from Mauritius, offered the platform for business meetings between entrepreneurs of the two countries to discuss opportunities with face-to-face interactions.

 It centred on strengthening bilateral trade and investment relations between the two countries.

 “The Mauritius entrepreneurs have come in to have a look at what Ghana can offer and what they can also offer Ghana, so that together the two countries can explore synergies to their mutual benefit.

“Mauritius has the expertise to offer high value added services such as education and medicine; the country has also diversified its industrial base over time to sea-food processing as well as other products,” Mr. Chamroo stated.

Mauritius is ranked number-one in Africa by the global competitiveness report, and has rich expertise in the financial sector -- of which Ghana can take advantage.

Mauritius has achieved with hard work the status of an upper middle-income nation with thriving, diverse industries and strong ties with all the continents. 

To achieve this transformation, Mauritius has engaged in aggressive economic diversification; first using the proceeds of its once dominant sugar industry to build a strong manufacturing base, and then broadening into services sectors – initially, tourism. 

The country now has an average annual growth rate of around 4 percent and has a multi-pillar economy comprising textiles and clothing, agro-business, sea-food, light engineering, jewellery, printing and publishing, luxury items, tourism and hospitality, logistics and distribution, ICT and Business processing outsourcing as well as financial services.

Its total investment export of goods into Africa is valued at over US$1billion. Its annual export is about US$6billion -- of which US$2.4billion accounts for the export of goods and US$2.6billion represents services exports in its global trade. 

Mr. Chamroo observed that Ghana is well integrated in the West African Economy, with a sound investment and political climate. 

This will allow entrepreneurs of the two countries to share experience of investment opportunities or join hands in investment promotion that allows Ghanaians to look at Mauritius but also especially the 26 countries that they could reach from the country.

The two institutions signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on behalf of their countries to help in information sharing, facilitate Business to business discussions and missions to and from each country and subsequently raise foreign direct investment in the country.

Mr. Chamroo signed on behalf of Enterprise Mauritius while Mawuena Trebah, Chief Executive Officer of the GIPC, initialled on behalf of the investment agency.

Mrs. Trebah indicated that FDI is critical to the diversification of every economy and that Mauritius has a competitive advantage in areas like financial services, oil and gas, heath care, free ports and logistics among others.

She observed that government sees the importance of the private sector as critical for national development.

“Government also has a private sector advisory council to keep it in tune with dealings of the sector.

“Pan-African business opportunities are now paramount, hence government’s readiness to welcome Mauritius’ interest in private sector development,” she remarked.