SheTrades Mauritius hub: Launch of the ‘Trade Beyond Borders’ capacity building programme
24 Mar 2025
Mrs. Josielle Rafidi, CEO of EDB Madagascar made a courtesy call to the Deputy CEO of EDB Mauritius, Mr. Sachin Mohabeer on Tuesday 28 January 2025. During the visit, discussions were focused on strengthening partnership between the two institutions for investment and export promotion that will benefit both countries. The proposal to have an association of IPAs for the Indian Ocean Islands has been discussed with the objective to establish close collaboration and synergy through common strategies and sharing of best practices in investment promotion.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Economic Development Board Mauritius (EDB) and the Economic Development Board Madagascar (EDBM) on 13th March 2019 to promote economic exchanges and facilitate investments between Mauritius and Madagascar. As such, several trade promotion missions as well as Study Tour have been carried out in both countries.
For instance, in 2023, a Mauritian delegation of private sector comprising of representatives from healthcare institutions, laboratories and Contract Research Organization conducted an export promotion mission for healthcare and life sciences in Antananarivo. A business forum was organized and a strong interest was noted amongst the attendees with a participation of 150 healthcare professionals from the Malagasy business community.
During that same year, EDB Mauritius in collaboration with the Regional Multidisciplinary Centre of Excellence (RMCE) and Africa RISE welcomed a delegation from the EDBM for a study tour.
Madagascar is the second main export destination after South Africa representing 10.3% of our total exports from January to June 2024. Comparing total trade figures from Mauritius to Madagascar for the first and second quarters of 2023 and 2024, it was noted that there was a significant increase in the total export value from MUR 3.9 billion to MUR 4.8 billion. The main commodities exported are chemicals, machinery and transport equipment, manufactured goods (leather, rubber manufactures, cork and wood manufactures), textile & apparels and sugar. Imported goods from Madagascar include vanilla, food products, textile and clothing, and wood products.
Mauritius is considered to be the largest foreign investor in Madagascar in terms of FDI flows and no other African country was among the top 10 investors (INSTAT, 2015). In 2019, Mauritius was the fourth main foreign investor in terms of number of companies created in Madagascar where no other African country appeared in the top 10 (EDBM, 2019).
Mauritian companies engaged in various activities such as agro-industry, logistics, distribution, ICT, banking, F&B, amongst others have established businesses in Madagascar while textile companies have relocated their production on the island.
