Mauritius Freeport Ranked 9th and Highly Commended in Africa from fDi’s Global Freezones of the Year Awards 2020
24 Nov 2020
Mauritius Freeport Ranked 9th and Highly Commended in Africa from fDi’s Global Freezones of the Year Awards 2020
The Mauritius Freeport is ranked 9th globally by the fDi intelligence magazine published on 15th October 2020 for the Annual Global Free Zones of the Year 2020. Among the top 10 Freezones worldwide, the Mauritius Freeport sector is also highly commended in Africa out of 61 free zones which have been assessed for fDi’s Global Freezones of the Year Awards 2020, aimed at acknowledging the most promising free zones across the globe.
The methodology used by the fDi’s Global Free Zones of the Year Awards 2020, is focused on the attractiveness of the free zones, more specifically, its infrastructure/facilities as well as incentives offered to investors.
Despite the current international economic crisis in view of COVID-19, the Third Party and Private Freeport Developers have maintained several expansion plans which are committed and realized for the period 2020/2021. The investments expansion projects of Mauritius Freeport Development Ltd, MFD Sky Ltd, Chantier Naval de l’Ocean Indien, Mauri-China Freezone Development Ltd, BPML-FSL, Les Moulins de la Cité and Gestock International Trading Ltd amongst others, are to the tune of MUR 2.6 Billion for Freeport infrastructural developments at the Port, Airport and Riche Terre industrial zone.
The Economic Development Board has recently declared 2 additional Freeport zones in respect of Mauritius Freeport Development Ltd and Mauri-China Freezone Development Ltd based at Riche Terre over an extent of 99,871 m2 of land with a projected investment around MUR 975 million and expected job creation of approximately 100 by 2021.
The rankings of 2018 and 2020 from fDi’s Global Free Zones of the Year Awards represent a new milestone for the Mauritius Freeport and the Freeport developers are adamant to building on their existing capacity to eventually meet the post COVID-19 era challenges of re-engineering regional value-chains and building on the several bilateral trade agreements to be established in the near future, such as the AfCFTA, the CECPA with India and the FTA with China.
The ranking of 2020 despite the limitation of activities impacted with budget 2018 as required by OECD, EU and WTO for international standards and the advent of the global challenges due to COVID-19, gives a lot of confidence to the sector as a whole and all stakeholders strongly belief that with a synergized effort by both the public and private sector and with improved connectivity, port efficiencies and trade financing solutions, the Freeport sector in Mauritius could be the answer to unlocking a vibrant regional trade platform.
Mauritius, through the EDB as Regulator of the Freeport Sector, is also an active and voting member of the World Free Zone Organization (WFZO) and Africa Economic Zone Organization (AEZO) since 2019. Adhesions to the two international organizations enable the Mauritius Freeport to benchmark on international best practices and empower business alliances and partnerships between other member states.
For more information, we invite you to download the report published in Oct 2020 on Global Free Zones of the Year 2020 from the link below:
