SEYCHELLES REALITY

Forimmediaterelease.net) Ministers Pierre Laporte (Finance, Trade&Investment), Rolph Payet (Environment&Energy), Alain St.Ange (Tourism&Culture), and Christian Lionnet (Land Use&Habitat) met this morning with Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman and CEO of Emirates Airline and Group&Vice President of Dubai, and his Emirates delegation Mr. Timothy Clark, the President of Emirates, and Mr. Marc Bennett, the Divisional SVP, Leisure Division of Emirates. Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum and his delegation are in Seychelles on a working visit to discuss the Emirates Hotel project at Cap Ternay. Emirates had presented a hotel project in 2006 which consisted of 453 hotel rooms and villas, a marina, and a number of water bungalows. Despite experiencing delays, they communicated their desire to play a long-term part in the tourism development of Seychelles and to continue the project. Following discussions with the government which took place in t...

The people of Seychelles and environmental friends of Seychelles are up in an overnight national uproar over the clandestine announcement by the PL regime that three large hotels and private marina projects are underway. All three of the projects are in zone A environmental zones established by the Minister of Environment Dr Rolph Payet himself with the intention of protecting for generations. "Zone A" environmental areas means that the area is highly sensitive and paramount to the eco system in the area, in these cases, we are referring to tropical costal marshes that provide life to coastal creatures and bird life that in turn keep the ocean healthy. DR PAYET RISKS DISCREDITING HIMSELF AND SEYCHELLES INTERNATIONALLY. Two of three projects are being built and advanced by Shiekh Khalifa Bin Nayan Al Zayed the great powerful high profile ruler of the UAE who is hell bent on making Seychelles part of his royal court and Seychelles 90% Muslim and 10% Christian, before...

Petition by Marc Houareau Seychelles   This petition will be delivered to: State House President James Michel, Minister of Environment and Energy Dr. Rolf Payet and Minister of Tourism and Culture Mr. Alain St. Ange. Two pristine coastal environments in Mahé have been earmarked for large tourism developments. Both Cap Ternay and Police Bay are planned to be turned into multi-million dollar properties with hundreds of hotel rooms. These two much-loved areas, which are always ranked highly in tourism publications such as Lonely Planet, will be irreversibly damaged in the process. The Government of Seychelles says that it is proudly committed to conservation and protecting the natural environment. Allowing these developments to go ahead will not only be detrimental to those ideals, but to the areas in question, which serve as important marshlands, support our ecosystem and are part of our national heritage. The two hotel projects sho...

There are more than 1,000 convicted Somali pirates in prisons around the world. Some of them end up in a UN-funded jail on the tiny island nation of Seychelles. The Indian shopkeepers along the beach have never heard of the prison at Montagne Posee, but a villager tells me to drive above a deep ravine full of banana trees. As the sea becomes a distant horizon and the road winds steeply, I stop to ask for directions from two men in yellow dungarees shovelling sand. As soon as the man with the shovel turns I can see that he is a prisoner. He asks first for cigarettes, then for money, and then he says: "Just give me anything, I have nothing, I am from Somalia." This is the pirates' prison, hidden high in the hills.  Hundreds of metres below, between two shimmering white beaches, upmarket tourists are paying up to £3,000 ($4,500) a night to stay in their thatched villas. They know nothing about this prison wing, opened three years ago by the UN Office on D...

Welcome to the May edition of the tourism industry newsletter. I again need to reiterate that the feedback is really appreciated. We can only improve on the publication that is really your mouthpiece with all these positive feedback we are getting.  Please feel free to use our newsletter for that purpose also. May sees us riding the wave still as far as visitor arrival numbers go. In the present state of world economies, this is positive news. And as serious industry players we say thank you to the authorities for maintaining the visibility of our islands in the four corners of the world. Today’s success is based on how visible we are, and remain as a destination. Seychelles has managed this well and the STB continues to capitalize on the press to compensate for lack of advertising budget.  This has been possible through personal contacts and by their Friends of Seychelles Press Club. Hong Kong has come and we are all glued to the weekly arrival figu...

BREAKING NEWS: SFP announces that JP Isaac is no longer SG of SFP as of Last week. We thank Mr. Isaac for the positive contributions he made to the party when he did, and we wish him well in his future efforts. The office of Secretary General is now occupied by the Leader of the Party Christopher Gill. SEYCHELLES FREEDOM PARTY.

May 9 (Reuters) - The number of tourists visiting the Seychelles rose a better than expected 15 percent in the first four months of 2013, the Republic's tourism minister said on Thursday, thanks to an influx of holidaymakers from Asia and a pick-up in visitors from some parts of Europe. The country now expects 2013 tourist numbers to be 10 percent higher than last year, when it recorded 208,000 visitors to the Indian Ocean archipelago, having previously predicted a rise of just 3 percent. Tourism directly and indirectly accounts for more than 60 percent of the national economy , which was worth $1.01 billion in terms of gross domestic product in 2011, according to the World Bank. "Europe remains the biggest tourism market for us," Minister of Tourism and Culture Alain St Ange told Reuters. "After a gloomy year last year for the French, British and Italians this year (visitors from) France and Britain surpassed that of 2011. Italy is still a lot lower, but...

VICTORIA, Mahé, May 9, 2013/African Press Organization (APO)/ — The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today completed the seventh review of Seychelles’ economic performance under a program supported by the Extended Fund Facility (EFF).1 Completion of the review permits the immediate disbursement of SDR 3.3 million (about US$5.0 million), bringing total disbursements under the four-year arrangement to SDR 23.1 million (about US$34.9 million). At the same meeting, the Executive Board also concluded the 2013 Article IV Consultation with Seychelles, details of which will be published in due course in a Public Information Notice. The Executive Board approved a three-year EFF arrangement for Seychelles in December 2009 in an amount equivalent to SDR 19.8 million (then about US$31.1 million—see Press Release No. 09/472). The arrangement was extended by one year in December 2012 to support the country’s economic reform program, with an augmentation of ac...

After james Michel took over from Albert Rene as President of Seychelles in a classic Communist pass the stick play, much like China does with its Central Commitee leadership, Mr Michel quickly, without a though double Seychelles external debt over night in two years, doubling the debt near 30 years of Rene Socialist economic program During this two year spend free careless era, Michel went about telling his ministers to "think big" act boldly. He told them to be smart, and work hard borrowing for Seychelles. In fact they borrowed every where they could. If a "mor-pyon" was lending, SPPF under James Michel would borrow. He did every trick in the book. He borrowed debt from Commercial Banks locally and abroad. He floated bonds with now defunct Lehman Brothers,he sold Seychelles Government shares of IOT to cover his escapades. You name it, Michel did it. On one occasion, he arrived from abroad, after visiting Pope John Paul at the Vatican and he announced in an out...

This past week, the President Mr James Michel, and a plethora of staff, cameras, make-up artists, props made their way, nearly to Mauritius, but stopped to Coetivy Island a massive flat coralline outcrop in the Indian Ocean. THE KING OF PRAWN ISLAND: Coetivy Island is famous for France Albert Rene Giant King Prawn and Tiger Prawns. The island was dug out with massive bull dozers, earth moving equipment in the 1980's to make way for the largest prawn farm in the Indian Ocean, 500 miles from any port of call. No kidding. The SPPF regime invested hundreds of million of US Dollars in this project. Every year Rene would say that we only need a few more concrete ponds to break the loss barrier and head into profit and make the Seychelles prawn industry situated over 500 miles from Port Louis Mauritius and 500 miles from Port Victoria, the most profitable industry in the Seychelles surpassing the hard investment Fishing Industry and yes, even surpassing the luxury tourist desti...