Objective: To put Mauritius into the league of high-income economies

Key focus areas:

  1. Address unemployment
  2. Alleviate, if not eradicate, poverty
  3. Open up the country and implement new air access policies
  4. Foster sustainable development and innovation

Action plan:

  1. Manufacturing Sector
  • Focus on the promotion of high-end, precision driven and technology enabled manufacturing to increase the share of manufacturing from 18 to 
25 percent of GDP within the next three years
  • Use necessary support mechanisms to attract more players in high-precision engineering, food processing, pharmaceutical products, jewelry and other fast moving consumer goods sectors, amongst others
  1. Ocean Economy
  • Negotiate with major international fishing companies and with port authorities respectively, set up fishing and seafood processing facilities, and develop fishing ports to transform Mauritius into a major regional fishing center
  • Set up a National Ocean Council to drive and implement projects related to the Blue Economy
  • Transform Port Louis into a leading regional petroleum hub by leveraging the 30,000 ships that pass by Mauritius annually and provide them with bunkering and other related services
  • Form a regional shipping company to serve the region
  • Develop a fully dedicated cruise terminal to foster tourism
  1. Financial Services
  • Create a new Ministry dedicated to Financial Services and Good Governance to develop Mauritius into a vibrant and sophisticated international financial services center
  • Reactivate the Financial Services Consultative Council
  • Negotiate a Double Taxation Avoidance Treaty with India after the ratification of the same treaty with South Africa
  • Finalize the partnership between the National Stock Exchange of India and the Stock Exchange of 
Mauritius to list and trade International financial products in US dollars; establish similar initiatives with the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and the Singaporean Stock Exchange;
  • Develop an “African Index Listing”, NIFTY listings and a “Sustainability Index”
  • Develop capital markets to attract world-class liquidity providers, international brokers, investment banks and fund managers to create sustainable employment in the sector
  1. Innovation, Technology and Communication, Life Sciences and Other Services
  • Move towards the provision of high-end activities like software and animation development, big data analytics, disaster recovery, and cloud computing, amongst others
  • Establish a techno entrepreneurship culture by supporting the creation of high-end and state-of-the-art incubators
  • Focus on SMEs through the establishment of a one stop shop
  • Transform Mauritius into a SMART island and embed the use of technology in the day-to-day life of every Mauritian by embarking on mega projects involving Smart Cities and new Cyber Cities including techno parks
  • Develop Mauritius as a regional hub for life sciences and R&D, healthcare and medical services as well as a medical education center of excellence for Africa
  • Support the emergence of new industries like fashion, entertainment and cinema
  1. Africa strategy
  • Position Mauritius as the regional platform for trade, investment and services to do business in Africa
  • Develop agreements with other countries in Africa for the development of Special Economic Zones and collaborations in other fields
  • Set up a regional airline company to connect Mauritius to mainland Africa
  1. Job Creation
  • 40 major private sector investment projects in the pipeline for a total amount of MUR 183 billion (USD 5 billion), of which foreign direct investments represent 77 percent, with the potential of creating 100,000 new direct and indirect jobs within the coming five years
  • Main sectors of job creation are: Financial services (15,000), ICT (15,000), Ocean Economy (25,000), Tourism (8,000), Manufacturing (5,000), Construction and Property Development (15,000), Health, Wellness and Biotechnology Sectors (2,000), Education and Knowledge Sector (3,000), Logistics (3,000) and SME (9,000)
  • Create 16,000 new jobs and fill more than 7,000 vacancies in the public sector only in the 2015-16 period
  1. Public Sector
  • Execute and accelerate the Public Sector Investment Program in the water sector, electricity, waste and wastewater management, roads, port, airport and communication amongst others, with an investment of MUR 75 billion (USD 2 billion) over the next five years
  • Start works for the Road Decongestion Program (July 2016) to address the road congestion problem with an investment of MUR 15 billion (USD 405 million) over the next five years

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