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Mauritius Target To Become A Business Outsourcing Hub Hits A Snag

Mauritius Target To Become A Business Outsourcing Hub Hits A Snag

By Honoré Banda | From The Africa Report

Costs are rising and global competition is stronger, so the government and players in the BPO sector are looking to increase the complexity of the services on offer.

Mauritius’s information and communications technology (ICT) and business process outsourcing (BPO) sectors, which began in the late 1990s as a means to diversify the economy away from sugar and textiles, have reached a growth plateau.

According to business leaders, Mauritius is still far from its objective of becoming a fully-fledged ICT hub.

Vidia Mooneegan, managing director at Ceridian Mauritius, which specialises in human capital management and software creation, says the government’s target of returning to double-digit growth is not an easy task.

He says it will take a series of measures including heavy investment in education and infrastructure to help the industry move up the value chain.

So far, the new government has voiced high ambitions but been slow to take action towards attaining them.

He also says that new financial structures are required.

“Mauritius needs angel investors to invest their own money in start-ups. When investors see the success of these start-ups, then we will have venture capital funds looking for projects.

“This is how it works in other parts of the world, for example in Silicon Valley, London, Berlin, Israel and South Africa, which is closer to home,” Moonegan tells The Africa Report.

There were 138 companies working in Mauritius’s ICT sector in 2013.

To take the industry to its next level, the government has set itself the lofty objective of transforming Mauritius into a smart island.

The Smart Mauritius Strategy, which the government is finalising, is based on the rolling out of bandwidth and several other projects.

Read more at The Africa Report