Written by Hamma Barry | From Money Web

It’s worth taking note of Mauritius’s move to position itself as an attractive destination for financial services.

With a population of just 1.3 million, the island boasts 21 banks, including such global names as HSBC, Standard Chartered, Barclays, Deutsche Bank and South Africa’s own Investec and Standard Bank.

The world’s largest reinsurance company, Munich Re, has a presence in Port Louis, Munich Mauritius Reinsurance Company (MMRC), which is a separate subsidiary to Munich Re of Africa, based in Johannesburg.

Mauritius has 26,096 global business companies and 905 global funds in the country. The financial services sector, which contributes 10.3% to a GDP of $10.49bn, employs 13,000 people.

Although this is far below the 111,700 employed in manufacturing (contributing 16.9% to GDP) and 47,400 employed in agro-culture (contributing 3.9% to GDP), the sector accounts for the third highest number of active occupation permits held by foreign nationals (12%). This is behind only the ICT and media industry (18%) and hospitality and airline industry (16%).

Building an international finance centre

“[Financial sector regulation] is quite flexible, it has got the right balance between being too heavy-handed and too light-handed. At the same time, it provides reasonably firm guidance to what firms can and cannot do,” said Dr Percy Mistry, speaking at a Financial Services Commission (FSC) event on January 15 this year.

Economic adviser and CEO of Oxford International Group, Dr Mistry was presenting his report titled, ‘Building Mauritius as a Competitive International Finance Centre – A roadmap for the Mauritian Financial Services Industry’.

“The two regulators of the financial services sector, namely the FSC and the Bank of Mauritius (BoM), are very well-respected and recognised. In fact, I believe that the regulators could offer a regulatory advisory service that will be welcomed by many international takers, especially in Africa,” Dr Mistry said.

Read more at Money Web