Why Seychelles? Investing in ‘another world.’
Seychelles has long been fabled for the sublime beauty of her islands many of which continue to slumber the sleep of ages and remain wonderfully untouched since the dawn of time.
However, somewhat inevitably, in our mushrooming world of the internet, super-fast connectivity and seemingly endless platforms of social media, the secret about this archipelago of 115 sparkling islands, widely considered to be the most beautiful on the planet, is getting out.
Today, Seychelles is being recognised for far more than its world-beating sun, sea & sand and a combination of extremely favourable circumstances with which Seychelles has been blessed is conspiring to make these island jewels very interesting for international investments.
Perfectly located in the western Indian Ocean, between 4 and 10 degrees south of the equator and 1000 miles from the east coast of Africa, the principal islands of Seychelles are located well outside the cyclone belt. They offer a healthy, tranquil yet vibrant environment that is wonderfully disease free and home to a multi-ethnic, racially integrated and multi-cultural population of only 88,000 people for whom harmony is a way of life.
Once a French colony before being administrated by the British for 165 years, today Seychelles is a trilingual society (English, French and Creole) and predominantly French Catholic. Since its independence in 1976, Seychelles has been a republic within the Commonwealth with a record of many years of social harmony and political stability.
Especially beneficial to would-be investors is the fact that Seychelles is 4 hours ahead of GMT and with business hours which overlap with cities from London to as far as Tokyo. Further advantages lie in the presence of a workforce whose quality is expected to improve steadily thanks to the recent launch of the University of Seychelles, as well as in the necessary infrastructure: excellent air and sea connectivity, modern telecommunications, insurance, banking, utilities and road networks. In particular, the advent of broadband internet connectivity via undersea cable in mid-2012 is expected to revolutionise the business sector.
Having recently engaged in an extensive, macro reform programme under the IMF, Seychelles’ economy has proved its resilience and remains set to benefit from the government’s wish to see the private sector playing a prominent role in the business environment while the government focuses on facilitating and regulating for progress.
Constraints of remoteness and scale limitation continue to be mitigated by the enhanced airlift of recent years and by strategies for regional integration. An increase in the services of Emirates, Qatar, Etihad, Ethiopian and Kenya Airways means that the islands are effectively one stop from anywhere on the planet while, as a member of SADC, COMESA and the IOC, Seychelles is in a position to be able to offer investors access to a collective population of 700 million or a collective GDP of 1.2 million dollars.
Backed by a fair taxation system and body of legislation designed to allow businesses to grow while affording investor protection, the Seychelles Investment Board, the one-stop-shop for promoting, attracting and retaining investment, sees lucrative opportunities for investment in tourism, industrial fisheries, oil exploration and renewable energy, telecommunications, construction & real estate, trading, financial services and agriculture.