The Hindu : Mauritius looking for Indian investment in HRD

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Feb 19, 2004

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Mauritius looking for Indian investment in HRD

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, FEB. 18. Mauritius is keen on attracting Indian investment in human resource development, including higher education and information and communications technology in view of its plans to diversify its manufacturing sector, according to Ramduth Jaddoo, former Foreign Minister and Education Minister of the Indian Ocean island republic.

If Mauritius is to take advantage of the AGOA (African Growth and Opportunity Act, a unilateral U.S. package of duty-free and quota-free access to a range of products from several African democracies), it has to ensure that products manufactured in the country meet the rules of origin under the American legislation. As a result, foreign investors in the textile industry in Mauritius are setting up spinning mills in that country to produce yarn indigenously. The establishment of a wider industrial base reaching beyond sugar and textiles would also require the development of human resources, Mr. Jaddoo said. The Mauritius Government offered to industries undertaking modernisation a refund of the cost of manpower training besides concessions in taxation, he added.

Addressing a meeting organised on Monday by the Madras Institute of Development Studies, he said Mauritius was a member of the SADC (South African Development Community) and COMESA (Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa), besides being a beneficiary of the Lome Convention (under which some African and Caribbean countries get market access preferences in the European Union).

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