08.19.10
Posted in International Organisations, International relations, Seychelles government at 2:18 pm by Robert Klien
Seychelles has joined the group of countries that ratified the founding Rome statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the independent tribunal to try genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Seychelles will become its 112th member state on November 1, 2010.
In its statement, the ICC welcomed the decision of the country “to join the growing group of states determined to put an end to impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes.”
The International Criminal Court is operating in The Hague since 2002. Now the court is considering cases in five countries, including Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda. Warrants have been issued by the ICC against 13 persons, most notably for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
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08.13.10
Posted in Financial Services, International Organisations, International relations, Seychelles government at 2:51 pm by Robert Klien
The Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA) was signed between the Seychelles and the Netherlands. This is the first agreement of this kind for the Seychelles, but not the last one, the Seychelles government following its policy to develop Seychelles international business and financial services sector.
The Seychelles and the Netherlands have agreed to incorporate the OECD standard for such agreements into their TIEA. This will encourage tax authorities of both parties to exchange taxpayer information for specific purposes, including countering tax evasion and money laundering. Also, according to the agreement , neither tax authority can refuse to provide information solely because it does not require the information for domestic purposes, or because it is held by a bank or similar institution.
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08.05.10
Posted in International Organisations, Seychelles government, Seychelles legislation at 11:55 am by Robert Klien
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Seychelles is meeting the performance criteria under its Extended Funds Facility, namely in the launch of tax reforms.
A comprehensive tax reform was launched by the Seychelles government with the budget 2010. The first stage of it was the introduction of a revised Business Tax Act from January 1, 2010. Business tax reform widened the tax base and provided for gradual reduction in tax rates.
The second stage has been the introduction of a withholding-based personal income tax on wages from July 1, 2010. Seychelles government is planning to broaden the application of personal income tax to other sources of domestic-sourced income, as the new system becomes established. From January 1, 2011, Personal Income Tax rates will be set at 15% for all categories of workers.
The last stage will be the introduction of a value-added tax (VAT) from January 1, 2012, which will take the place of multiple-rate goods and services tax (GST).
Along with these reforms, revenue administration will be also modernized. By the time of the tax reform, the Seychelles government’s policy will not provide new tax incentives and exemptions.
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07.13.10
Posted in International Organisations, International relations, Seychelles government at 10:54 am by Robert Klien
On July 5, a delegation from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) met Vice-President and Minister for Finance and Trade Danny Faure and other high government officials.
On July 6, the WTO delegation held talks with Seychelles’ President James Michel at State House.
On July 7, the delegation met assembly speaker Dr Patrick Herminie and members of its international affairs committee.
The WTO delegation was headed by Hilda Al-Hinai, the chairperson of Seychelles’ WTO accession working party and Oman’s deputy ambassador at the world trade body. She came to have discussions with various stakeholders. The delegation was accompanied by Seychelles’ ambassador to the European Union Vivianne Fock-Tave and our chief negotiator for the WTO accession, Charles Morin.
Ms Al-Hinai said that the talks have shown a very high level of commitment from the government of Seychelles towards its accession to the WTO, and she believes that this will move things forward.
It is worth mentioning that the jurisdiction restarted the process of joining the WTO in 2008.
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07.05.10
Posted in Business and Economy, International Organisations, Seychelles government at 11:08 am by Robert Klien
Seychelles’ economic reform programme has been praised and it received a major boost in front of week’s Paris Club meeting of international lenders.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) made issued a press release to praise the ongoing results of the economic programme. The IMF said that Seychelles’ economic policies “continue to be anchored by prudent fiscal policies”.
As a result of this, the jurisdiction qualifies for another installment of USD 3.3 million as part of the 3-year Extended Fund Facility arrangement (EFF). This announcement was made after the IMF’s executive board completed the 1st review of Seychelles’ economic performance, bringing the total amount of disbursements under the EFF to USD 7.8 million.
According to the IMF, the economy of Seychelles has proved remarkably resilient to the recently-experienced double crisis. The IMF said: “Following a turnaround in its economic policies to address an external debt crisis and a global financial crisis in 2008, the country appears to have emerged from the recession”. It was added that real gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 0.7% in 2009, and growth is projected to recover further to 4% in 2010.
In accordance with the press release, Seychelles’ government revenue is exceeding expectations in 2010. It said: “The authorities have also strengthened public finance and central bank management and are starting to address the restructuring of several key public enterprises and financial institutions, with a view to reducing the risks to the government budget and fostering sustained private sector-led growth.”
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05.20.10
Posted in International Organisations, International relations, Seychelles government at 2:28 pm by Robert Klien
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the economy of Seychelles has shown strong resilience to global financial shocks of the year 2009. The IMF said that the jurisdiction’s economy is recovering faster than expected from measures taken to adjust it.
The above-mentioned conclusions are the key findings of an International Monetary Fund mission in Seychelles since May 4. The IMF has already completed mission’s 1st review under the Extended Fund Facility. The mission is headed by Jean Le Dem.
The success of the review of the mission was announced during a press conference that was held at the Central Bank on May 17. The conference was attended by Minister for Finance Danny Faure, his principal secretary Ahmed Afif and the head of division, policy, market operations and statistics Caroline Abel.
Mr Le Dem described the discussions as successful. He said that all quantitative performance criteria as of the end of March 2010 have been met and structural measures programmed to end in April 2010 have been carried out, as well as policies for the rest of the year 2010 have been agreed with the government.
In his statement, Le Dem highlighted some of the findings of the IMF mission:
- the macro-economic situation has improved; the economy has shown strong resilience and flexibility to the shocks in 2009 and is recovering more quickly than initially expected from adjustment policies;
- economic activities have been maintained overall in 2009, notably in the tourism sector, due to an aggressive price policy which has made it possible to maintain hotel occupancy rates and employment in that sector;
- the exchange rate has stabilised on average against the main currencies since the beginning of the year 2010 and the external position is strengthening, with international reserves already covering 2 months of imports.
Le Dem also stated that the assessment of government revenue projections for 2010 that was discussed during the mission provides room for a more rapid path towards fiscal sustainability. Seychelles’ monetary policy has been loosened, while key interest rates like treasury bill rates have been reduced to lower levels. Measures to promote private sector development have been good, especially on tax reforms, public finance management, reorganisation of Central Bank operations, financial sector supervision and public enterprise reform.
He stressed the 2 major areas that are crucial to the reform programme - the tax system and private sector development.
The 2nd review mission is expected in October 2010.
Seychelles’ Minister for Finance Danny Faure suggested that the mission’s findings are encouraging and are good for our reform programme. He expressed his hopes that this will result in the last stage of debt cancellation.
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05.17.10
Posted in International Organisations at 5:28 pm by Robert Klien
Last weekend, the secretary-general of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) (http://www.cpahq.org/cpahq/mem/default.aspx) visited Seychelles as part of official visits to branches in the Africa region.
Dr William Shija was met the National Assembly’s deputy speaker Wilby Lucas. During his 2-day stay, he visited the Seychelles branch of the CPA, with its president - the assembly speaker Dr Patrick Herminie. Also, he attended the branch’s executive committee meeting at the assembly, to be co-chaired by the vice-presidents, Marie-Louise Potter and Wavel Ramkalawan.
Active CPA branches are found in 175 national, state, provincial and territorial parliaments with a total of around 17 000 parliamentarians. The Seychelles branch became a member of the CPA in 1995. From 2003 to 2007 its membership was suspended until its fee settlement in 2008.
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05.02.10
Posted in International Organisations, Seychelles government at 11:11 am by Robert Klien
When opening the joint meeting for health, HIV and Aids ministers from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region at the International Conference Centre, Seychelles’ Vice-President Joseph Belmont said: “All the human and material resources that we have must be deployed not just to fight, but to fight and win the war on the many diseases affecting the southern African region”.
The official opening ceremony of the 2-day forum was attended by the presence of the National Assembly Speaker Patrick Herminie, the SADC chairperson Dr Victor Makwenge-Kaput, who is also the Democratic Republic of Congo Health Minister, the Seychelles Minister for Health and Social Development Marie-Pierre Lloyd and diplomatic members.
Belmont said that the Southern African region has become peaceful, war-region free, however, yet there is a relentless war with many diseases and socio-economic scourges that trouble the progress. The meeting was aimed at strengthening the health systems and addressing the social determinants of health.
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03.12.10
Posted in International Organisations at 11:41 am by Robert Klien
The new head of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) mission to Seychelles, Jean Le Dem, expects that the jurisdiction’s rapid economic recovery will continue.
In the middle of March, Mr Le Dem was introduced to President James Michel by his predecessor Paul Mathieu. The IMF’s head said that his team will come in May in order to review the programme. They will study Seychelles’ success story and then spend 2 weeks assessing how the programme has been running since the last evaluation. After that, they will return every 6 months.
Mr Mathieu noted that having been involved with Seychelles since July 2008 was a great pleasure for him. According to him, “one of the pleasures of working with Seychelles has been the dramatic success of the reforms, with major changes in economic and financial policies”.
He said the results were also very fast in stabilising the exchange rate and reducing the budget deficit to end up with a surplus.
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10.19.09
Posted in International Organisations, International relations at 7:42 pm by Robert Klien
It has been described before that Seychelles’ Minister of Finance said the jurisdiction’s presence at the meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank was highly productive. The meeting was held in Istanbul, Turkey. Also, other useful meeting were held when the Seychelles’ delegation was visiting Turkey.
As regards trade development, Minister of Finance Mr Faure and his delegation held intensive talks with the Turkish Minister of Foreign Trade Zafer Ça?layan. Faure has recently revealed that the 2 jurisdictions are to start talks on a free trade agreement soon. This treaty will be beneficial for local consumers and businessmen. The 1st round of the negotiations is expected to take place in November.
Mr Faure also spoke at the small states forum that was attended by World Bank president Robert Zoellick. At the forum, Faure presented a report on an e-learning project prepared by the Ministry of Education.
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