Seychelles

The Seychelles is a nation of 115 islands that lies off the Eastern coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean and is a high-income country with a GDP of 1.59 billion USD in 2018. The Seychelles has an agricultural sector that contributes 2.5% to the country’s GDP; the main agricultural and fisheries products include coconuts, vanilla, cassava, and tuna. The tuna industry in the Seychelles, which includes fisheries as well as processing and canning, is a major component of the economy that employs approximately 17% of the population. To improve the sustainability of local fisheries and grow the blue economy, the Government of the Seychelles in partnership with the World Bank issued the world’s first sovereign blue bonds in 2018. The blue bonds are structured to fund projects related to fisheries management, conservation, and other relevant activities in the blue economy of the Seychelles. The Seychelles also has an industrial sector that contributes 13.8% to GDP and includes construction as well as a manufacturing industry that mainly processes food and beverage products.

The service sector is the largest economic component of the Seychelles, and is dominated by the tourism industry, which directly employs approximately 26% of the labour force and accounts for over 55% of the country’s GDP. To ensure tourism in the Seychelles grows sustainably, the Government of the Seychelles launched the Seychelles Sustainable Tourism Label Programme in 2011, which certifies eco-friendly hotels using criteria tailored to the island nation’s cultural and environmental concerns. The Government of the Seychelles has also promoted the diversification of the economy by supporting the growth of several industries in the service sector, such as financial services, renewable energy, and information and communication technology.

The Seychelles also has an expanding startup community with supports available to grow small businesses, such as an incubator, an investment network, and government funding programs. Currently, startups in the Seychelles are based across several industries that include agriculture, manufacturing, and hospitality. As the Seychelles has experienced several mass coral bleaching events that threaten the future health of its coastal waters, working with startups to restore damaged coral habitat as well as to develop climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies is another area of potential collaboration.