The UK’s newly appointed Trade Envoy to Mauritius, Mr Andrew Selous MP, signed the UK-Mauritius Strategic Trade Partnership (STP) on 17 April during a visit to the island. The new Partnership is intended to help boost bilateral trade and investment across a range of priority sectors, including financial and professional services among others.
The British High Commissioner, H.E. Charlotte Pierre, was delighted to welcome Mr Andrew Selous MP, the UK Prime Minister’s newly appointed Trade Envoy to Mauritius this week. One of the main objectives of Mr Selous’ first visit to Mauritius was to sign the Strategic Trade Partnership (STP), which will help boost trade and investment between the UK and Mauritius across a range of priority sectors including financial and professional services, waste management and green economy, education, cyber, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology and agritech. The current relationship is worth over 40 billion MUR annually and the STP takes this further. He also had a series of high-level engagements with senior government officials and industry leaders in Mauritius.
During a two-day visit, Mr Selous MP paid a courtesy call to Hon. Prime Minister Jugnauth and formally invited Mauritius to join the UK-Africa Investment Summit scheduled to take place in April 2024. He also met Hon. Alan Ganoo, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Cooperation and International Trade and Hon. Soomilduth Bholah, Acting Finance Minister and Minister of Industrial Development, SMEs and Cooperatives. They discussed the UK and Mauritius’ shared ambitions to deepen trade, fuel economic growth and promote bilateral cooperation. In addition, Mr Selous MP heard a range of views from British and Mauritian industry leaders and reiterated the UK’s commitment to support Mauritius’ international and Africa-wide trade and export ambitions.
On 17 April, Trade Envoy Selous joined the Hon. Minister Bholah, Acting Finance Minister to sign the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the Strategic Trade Partnership, a significant milestone that will see the UK-Mauritius trade relationship take to new heights.
‘I have been privileged to be appointed as the UK Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Mauritius in December 2022 and have been looking forward to visiting ever since. My mission here is a very simple one: to support and boost trade and investment between our two great countries. I serve businesses in both countries to do business in the other, and I’m hugely excited by the enormous potential for us to continue to do more together, including in the wider African region. I want us to build prosperity, to eliminate poverty, and to create the opportunities and the life chances for the peoples of both our countries for many years to come,’ Andrew Selous MP, Trade Envoy to Mauritius said.
‘Trade is at the heart of everything we do. It supports the long-term health of our economies; it drives innovation, creates job opportunities and strengthens the ties between fast-growing economies like the UK and Mauritius. In 2022, the total trade in goods and services between our two countries was worth over 40 billion rupees. We are proud that the UK is Mauritius’ second biggest export market while Mauritius is the UK’s sixth biggest trade partner in Africa. As the globe continues to face economic uncertainty, trade will remain vitally important to all our futures. I am honoured to have joined Hon. Minister Bholah and the Trade Envoy, Mr Selous, for this new milestone in the UK-Mauritius trade partnership, maximising the UK’s relationship with a country not simply being a Small Island Developing State, but also a big ocean nation,’ the British High Commissioner, Her Excellency Charlotte Pierre stated.
The Hon. Minister Bholah, Acting Finance Minister, expressed his sincere thanks to the UK Prime Minister and the UK Government and described the new Partnership as a “key milestone” in the history of the economic relations that exists between the two countries. “It epitomises the determination, the willingness and drive from our two nations to nurture and grow further the bilateral trade and investment relations. It establishes a platform to reduce investment risks, respond to the demand for skills and review market conditions to encourage investors. The United Kingdom is one of Mauritius’ largest trading partners and our economic ties are built on a shared commitment to free and fair trade”.
The Trade Envoy’s appointment follows a meeting between the then UK Prime Minister, Liz Truss and the Prime Minister of Mauritius, Pravind Jugnauth, at the UN General Assembly in New York in 2022. Both welcomed steps to strengthen the UK- Mauritius relationship, including through a Strategic Trade Partnership (STP).
