The Role of Agriculture in the Economic Development of Mauritius

Neszmélyi, György Iván – Erdeiné Késmárki-Gally, Szilvia

Keywords: agricultural economy, sugar cane, production, Mauritius, O13, Q17, R11

The paper focuses on the economic metamorphosis of Mauritius, a tiny country surrounded by the Indian Ocean, in the geographic proximity of Africa. The Mauritian economy showed spectacular development and its GDP growth is also noticeable, in 2018 the latter was 4.1%. Decades ago, the agriculture generated the overwhelming part of its national income, while nowadays the locomotive of the economy is the services sector, tourism can be considered a fundamental sector. The sugarcane-based agriculture, which is one of the colonial heritages of Mauritius contributes to the GDP in 4% only. In spite of the more or less steady and stable economic growth, due to her geographic endowments and the limited arable lands, Mauritius will need significant food-imports in the future. In terms of the agricultural trade balance, Mauritius is net agricultural importer. Food supply and the preservation of the limited sweet water reserves belong to the main national security issues. The most important factors of the agricultural development are sustainability, efficiency and the application of environment-sound technologies. Besides fostering the economic growth, the government of Mauritius is committed to protect the environment, facilitate the social stability, reduction of unemployment and the eradication of poverty and corruption. In the global economy Mauritius tries to find its place by improving its relations with bigger economic hubs in the world (e.g. China, India, Europe) and it endeavours to play a bridge role between the inter Asian-African investments. The study attempted to draw lessons for the Hungarian readers and professionals – the foreign economic policy relying successfully on the geographic endowments and comparative advantages of the country and also the policies that are strongly devoted to the enhancement of sustainability and environmental protection have to be underlined.

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