India and Seychelles Signed BIPA

On 02 June2010 India and Seychelles signed a Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (BIPA) during the 3-day visit of Seychelles President James Alix Michel to India. Alix Michel sought better air links with India for the improvement of economic ties and for promoting tourism.

With BIPA, between India and Seychelles, there will be investment opportunities for India in Seychelles in areas of

•    offshore exploration
•     fisheries,
•    marine and aqua culture projects;
•     renewable energy,
•    eco tourism projects;
•    IT and ICT business and specialized restaurants.

The BIPA agreement will boost Indian investment in Seychelles.

India has offered a Line of Credit (LOC) of 10 million dollars to Seychelles in order to develop self-sustaining and revenue generating projects inside Seychelles. The LOC will be provided as a two-step loan to the Development Bank of Seychelles.

India agreed to continue its commitment in building of infrastructure in Seychelles and extending all assistance in areas identified during the 7th India-Seychelles joint commission meeting held in Mahe in May 2010.

The two nations discussed on areas of economic cooperation, capacity building, defence and security cooperation, enhancing trade and investment and cooperation in the fight against piracy. Seychelles is located in Indian Ocean and can provide India a strategic maritime base to combat sea piracy. Recently sea piracy has become a big problem for India, which is adversely affecting its tourism and trade with other countries.

India will continue to assist Seychelles in capacity building efforts through short and medium term training courses through the ITEC programme as also through long-term scholarships. Both sides agreed that climate change issues affect both countries and action needed to be taken by global community to reduce its impact.