India on Monday announced a special economic package of $175 million for Seychelles, including providing 1,000 million tonnes of grains and lentils towards the food security of the island nation.
Over the past few months, consistent with its policy of ‘neighbourhood first’ and ‘non-reciprocity’, New Delhi has announced similar assistance to help its smaller neighbours.
India has announced, and started implementing, the $450 million reconstruction package for Sri Lanka to recover from Cyclone Ditwah. In September, it announced $680 million in financial assistance for Mauritius, and assistance has been announced for Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, and Afghanistan.
On Monday, India and Seychelles, an Indian Ocean archipelago comprising over 100 islands off East Africa, signed seven agreements and adopted a ‘joint vision for sustainability, economic growth and security through enhanced linkages’. New Delhi committed to assisting in setting up a hydrographic unit in Seychelles after Prime Minister Narendra Modi held wide-ranging talks with the island nation’s President Patrick Herminie.
Seychelles is a key maritime neighbour for India in the Indian Ocean Region. Herminie is on a six-day visit to India, which concludes on Tuesday. At a joint briefing with Herminie, the PM said the economic package would support “concrete projects” in areas such as social housing, mobility, vocational training, health, defence, and maritime security. In his remarks, the PM touched upon people-to-people ties between the two nations.
In 1770, a small group of five Indians landed in Seychelles as plantation workers, along with seven African enslaved persons and 15 French colonists, and were recorded as the first inhabitants of the islands. From the beginning of the 20th century, there was a constant flow of Indians, mostly from Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, and later from Gujarat, who went there as traders, labourers, construction workers, and more recently, as professionals.
The number of people of Indian origin (PIOs) with Seychelles citizenship is estimated to be around 5,000, which is significant in a country with a total population of about 120,000. The PIO community dominates the trading and construction sectors. There are also over 7,000 non-resident Indians holding ‘gainful employment permits’, who are mostly workers in the construction sector, shop assistants, and a few professionals.
The PM’s official visit to Seychelles in March last year was the first prime ministerial-level visit from India in 34 years. According to the Ministry of External Affairs, bilateral trade and commerce with Seychelles is rather modest, mostly due to the absence of a direct shipping line between India and Seychelles.
The state visit of the Seychelles President to India has come around a hundred days after his inauguration and signals the shared commitment of India and Seychelles to strengthen, expand, and deepen their longstanding and multifaceted bilateral partnership, a joint statement issued after the talks between Modi and Herminie said. It also coincides with the 50th year of independence of Seychelles.
India also committed to support the construction of a new hospital in Seychelles, institutionalise a mechanism through which Seychelles could procure quality and cost-effective food and essential commodities from India, train its civil servants, and enhance preparedness for and mitigation of the effects of climate change.
The PM concluded a visit to Malaysia on Sunday, where he met members of the Indian diaspora, most of whom trace their origins to Tamil Nadu.
