Kenya and the Seychelles on Monday entered into an agreement to expand their ties in trade and security. In addition, President Danny Faure and his Kenyan counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta agreed that Kenya will continue to export human resource to the island country. Labour that it increasingly need.

This was during the Seychelles Presidents three-day state visit to Kenya. Their meeting also resulted in a broad-based agreement that will see more Kenyan agricultural products exports to the Seychelles.They are consuming more.

President Faure said it made more economic sense for his country to import beef and poultry from Kenya instead of countries such as Brazil. As reported by local media, the Seychelles will, on their part, support Kenya in developing its maritime sector especially the fishing industry, which Kenya has paid little attention to since independence. President Faure announced that his country would support Kenya to make the port of Mombasa develop the capacity to act as a fish transshipment port.

Other areas of partnership are in tourism development and cooperation in processing information and intelligence sharing in fisheries and marine security. This is the inter-African trade arrangement that we have always been pushing for. In 2012, trade between Kenya and Seychelles was worth Sh550 million - low but increasing every year. Kenya exported goods worth Sh183.3 million the Seychelles and imported goods worth Sh367 million. Kenyas main exports to the Seychelles include agricultural and medical products. Their exports to Kenya include fish products. In March 24, the two countries signed a double taxation avoidance agreement.

With the tax treaty, reinforced with the current visa exemption, trade experts estimated trade flows between the two countries would increase up to tenfold. This would also give Kenya and opportunity to do business with the wider Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa countries.

After Independence in 1976, the Seychelles developed from a largely agricultural society to a market-based diversified economy. This is the direction that we should take as a country.

We need to undertake fiscal consolidation and initiate economic reforms to adequately respond to the magnitude and persistence of the climate change and population growth that have adversely affected our agricultural sector. We have less land to cultivate and the environment is no longer favourable for farming, leading to persistent drought every now and then. We need alternatives.

For instance, French plantations were the main industry of the Seychelles until 1971, when the international airport opened. Overnight, tourism became a serious industry, basically dividing the economy into plantations and tourism. The tourism sector paid better, and the plantation economy could only expand so far. It is no surprise that President Faure had to leave his hotel as early as 5am on Wednesday to visit the Nairobi National Park.

The plantation sector of the economy declined in prominence, and tourism and fishing became the primary industries of the Seychelles. In the 1960s, about 33 per cent of the working population worked on plantations, but by 2006 it was less than three per cent.

Lets learn from their systems. We must not be short-sighted by the deals we signed with the Seychelles, lets look at the bigger picture. We could have learnt something from the Asian Tigers, we didnt.

Kibii comments on international and current affairs

Here is the original post:

Let's take lessons from Seychelles and divesify economy | The Star ... - The Star, Kenya