Mauritius witnessed around 2% rise in exports in the first six months of 2014, marking a significant achievement in the face of a changing economic landscape which has compelled the island economy to diversify its exports base.
Dev Chamroo, CEO, Enterprise Mauritius, mentioned in the export promotion agency’s July newsletter that total domestic exports reached Rs 29.37 billion in the first semester of 2014 compared to Rs 28.82 billion for the corresponding period of 2013.
In a boost to Export-Oriented Enterprises (EOEs), the value of exports from EOEs increased at a faster rate of 2.74% – compared to total domestic exports growth rate of 1.91% – to Rs 23.65 billion against Rs 23.02 billion in 2013.
Enterprise Mauritius noted that exports of textile products and clothing grew by 7.6%, yarns and fabrics rose by 5.8% and jewellery exports saw a vast improvement of 33.3 %.
“There is constant pressure on buying prices with the emergence of new sources of supply, there is demand for healthy, safer and environmentally friendly working conditions and now we have new obligations in terms of speed on delivery,” Dev Chamroo stated.
Coming to major destination countries for Mauritian exports, France sourced the maximum goods from Mauritius, followed by the United Kingdom, United States, Madagascar, Italy and South Africa.
Globally, the export market is facing many challenges, for instance, buyers are demanding more and more value-added services, higher quality of products and more generous credit terms.
The recent trends of ‘re-shoring’ and ‘near-shoring’ in the US and EU add another challenging dimension to the ever-present difficulties faced by global exporters.
With China and India poised to surpass the USA and Japan respectively as the world’s largest economies in terms of Purchasing Power Parity, though not in terms of per capita GDP, the global manufacturing and retail business is set to enter an ever more complicated maze.
Besides, the third edition of the Mauritius International Trade Expo (MAITEX) 2014 will be organised by Enterprise Mauritius from August 21 to 24, 2014 at the Swami Vivekananda International Convention Centre (SVICC).
MAITEX 2014 will gather about 150 exhibitors who will emphasize the diversity of products made locally.
In addition, it will overarch the fifth edition of the Mauritius Jewellery Exhibition (Eclat Tropical) and the third edition of the Mauritius Rum Festival.
According to Enterprise Mauritius, more than 300 foreign buyers from Africa and the rest of the world have already confirmed their participation in this important show.
The first two days will be dedicated to professional meetings which is when the Exporters Award 2014 Ceremony will also be held, while the last two days will be open to the public.
Recently, a group of Mauritian textile operators participated in Texworld in New York where they met potential buyers with the support of liaison officer Barbara Ende.
Finally, TeamEM is presently working on participating in Zoom by Fatex in Paris and in organising contact promotion programmes for Mauritian SMEs in Italy, Scandinavia, Russia and Spain.
Export-Oriented Enterprises (EOEs) particularly performed well, with the value of exports from EOEs increasing at a faster rate of 2.74% to Rs 23.65 billion, compared to the growth rate of total domestic exports at 1.91%. (Image: CHCL)
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