James Charnaud

I have been in Mauritius all week.

For several years the Government has been trying to diversify the island's economy from its heavy reliance on tourism and sugar production. Like many small tropical islands they find it very hard to compete with the massive-scale sugar production in places such as Brazil. The island is well-run and has a lot going for it - education levels are high and the population is multi-lingual (French, English and Creole). Staff costs are relatively low. The Government has implemented several programmes to attract foreign investment and these are really paying off. They include huge tax incentives, no restrictions on foreign exchange transfers, and a specific department designed to assist companies looking to locate here.

The island has two main office areas. The first is downtown Port Louis where the banks and Government are located. It commands the highest rentals of MUR 70-90 /sq ft /month (US$28-32 /sq ft /year) for the best space on the waterfront. It has very bad congestion at peak times. The second is Cyber City in Ebene roughly 12 km south-east of the city centre. This business park was set up by the Government to provide an area away from the congested centre where corporations can take space in modern buildings with reasonably large floor plates. It originally attracted tax incentives, but these expired in 2008. The Government constructed the first building, Ebene Cyber Tower, in 2004 and the park has been such a success that it now has over 20 significant developments, a hotel and a small shopping centre nearby, with the Mall of Mauritius just breaking ground over the main M2 highway. There is currently a lot of availability on the park. Although it provides the best quality buildings, rents are quoted in the order of MUR 40 /sq ft /month (US$16 /sq ft /year), and deals can be done below this level. Here are some photos I took of the development earlier today.