Ebène, 02 October 2026 –Professor Emeritus and Adjunct Professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) and Senior Research Advisor at the JICA Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development, Prof. Izumi Ohno was on the island last week under the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Chair Programme 2025-2026 where over days, she shared Japan’s experience of productivity and industrial development with policymakers, business leaders and other stakeholders.
On Monday, September 28, a high-level policy forum brought together senior representatives of the public and private sectors to discuss the place of productivity in industrial policy. Executive Director Dr. Vinaye Ancharaz unveiled the presentation themed “Mainstreaming Productivity into Industrial Policy,” arguing that while industrial policy decides where Mauritius should compete, productivity determines how it wins, and should therefore become the operating discipline of industrial policy. With an Industry Bill in preparation and a new industrial strategic plan for 2026–2030, he said the country has a unique opportunity to align policy, strategy and delivery. He proposed that every industrial support measure pass a productivity test, covering diagnosis, additionality, conditionality, measurement and review. He also presented the Vision 2050, which targets a USD 50 billion economy, as a productivity mission built on five priorities: AI-enabled enterprises, future-ready work, resource productivity, productive public systems and export complexity.
He also noted that Mauritius is entering the AI era with a productivity deficit set against post-COVID where labour productivity has grown by an average of only 1.5 percent a year, while capital productivity has declined by 0.4 percent. He argued that the policy objective should be the widespread productive use of AI, not the acquisition of technology alone.
On the other hand, Prof. Ohno, in her keynote address, “Mainstreaming Productivity in Industrial Policy: Lessons from Japan, Singapore, Thailand and Ethiopia,” argued that the critical question in industrial policy is not what policies to adopt but how to implement them effectively. She stressed that no country can simply copy another’s model. Each must go through a process of “translative adaptation,” learning from international practice and adapting it to local conditions.
She noted that the country has reached a new development stage and has many assets, including a strong business environment, established public-private dialogue, and the NPCC’s decades of productivity expertise. The challenge is to connect them for economy-wide impact. She cited Japan’s “Smart Manufacturing Support Teams,” which combine Kaizen with digital tools for SMEs, to show that technology works best when firms start with the problem rather than the technology. She concluded that there is no single model for mainstreaming productivity in industrial policy. Mainstreaming productivity does not mean creating a separate programme, but embedding productivity improvement across industrial policy and enterprise support. She described the National Productivity Master Plan as an excellent opportunity to do this.
On Tuesday 29 September, a special lecture was held at the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Public Service and Innovation, Réduit, based under the theme “Introducing Foreign Models for Development: Japanese Experience and Cooperation in the Age of New Technology.” In his address the Minister of Industry, SME and Cooperatives, Aadil Ameer Meea, stressed upon the importance of the National Productivity Master Plan currently being developed where the Government has already set in motion a slew of bold reforms in competitiveness, digitalisation, innovation, public sector modernisation, skills development and industrial upgrading.
“ The Government has already set in motion a range of bold reforms in competitiveness, digitalisation, innovation, public sector modernisation, skills development and industrial upgrading. But they cannot remain siloed within their respective sectors. What Mauritius needs now is the cohesion of a shared national productivity agenda that binds these efforts together and gives them a common purpose,” the Minister underlined.
