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* Council clears way for economic thrustThis is because they have no doubt that the economy is set to continue growing rapidly.
The council’s secretary, Caroline Abel, said this at State House after the meeting at which the members of the council “which is now more dynamic” listened to three presentations.
She said that the fisheries and tourism sectors are poised to grow very rapidly, thereby increasing demand for electricity among others things.
“Today’s meeting was the first for 2007, but is the third on the NEPC calendar which starts in September and has an annual eight meetings scheduled,” the secretary said, adding that the first presentation was made by the Public Utilities Corporation (PUC), which was responding to issues raised at the last NECP meeting which wanted future electricity supply capacity analysed.
“The secretariat of the council advised the chief executive officer (CEO) of PUC, Philippe Morin, to make a presentation on how they are looking at the future, as the economy becomes more dynamic,” Ms Abel said.
She said that the CEO explained PUC’s set-up and how electricity is generated and at what cost, and the existing tariff structure. Also discussed, she said, is the issue of some private organisations like hotels generating their own power which she said in some cases works out cheaper than when they draw current from the national grid.
“They don’t really want to generate electricity since power generation does not form part of the core of their business, but because of the cost, it sometimes becomes more cost effective to generate their own,” Ms Abel said.
“PUC is therefore looking at possibilities of how best to improve so that everybody who needs electricity can come on the main system,” she said.
She said that whatever is arrived at to address the issue does not mean that there will not be the dual generation by PUC and the private sector.
Ms Abel also said that PUC is working with consultants and making the final proposals on the way forward particularly with regard to addressing future demand “and the future demand is in fact is on the doorstep.”
She said increased demand is not only coming from tourism and fisheries, but also households which are increasing in numbers.
“So there is no question that PUC needs to increase capacity. They have to work on a plan that will improve on the current structure in terms of cost, tariffs and cost of production,” she said.
The second presentation was made by the principal secretary for International Relations, Vivianne Fock-Tave, on the economic partnership agreements with the European Union (EU) particularly with regard to the Cotonou agreement which gives the ACP countries accession privileges into the European market which is coming to an end this year.
“There is a new system being negotiated with the EU,” Ms Abel said, adding that competitiveness and how to access different markets were also discussed.
“Seychelles is in the configuration of eastern and southern Africa and is in negotiation with EU from both sides on how best to gain access to European markets, in our case fisheries being the main issue because we export a lot of our fisheries products especially canned tuna to Europe,” she said.
“The third presentation was on the strategy on the vision presented by President Michel on where to take Seychelles in the next five to 10 years because over the last 30 years the economy has grown in a particular direction and in principal we have to re-look at how the economy grows from now on given the pickup in the economic momentum
“Given the new momentum, government is looking at where the sources of growth will be.
“It has been identified that tourism and fisheries are going to drive the economy along with the peripheral services that will come online,” she said, adding that internet connectivity and financial services were also discussed.