Dear valued stakeholders and investors,
The EDB is pleased to present to you its newsletter on the National Budget 2024/2025.
Budget 2024/25 builds on the foundations of our past successes while paving the way for a future filled with promise and potential. It marks a crucial step towards strengthening Mauritius’ resilience and adaptability in an era of global uncertainty and change.
As highlighted by the IMF in its staff report in May 2024, curbing the fiscal deficit is important to support macroeconomic stability and contain inflationary pressures. This fiscal exercise sets the ball rolling to achieve a public sector debt of 71 percent of GDP by June 2025.
For his fifth budget, the Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development made a balanced approach to bolster trade and investment, sharpen the transition to a green and sustainable economic model, and lay down a resilient foundation for future growth. This triple axis underpins the projected GDP growth of 6.5% for the present calendar year and a yearly average growth of 5% in the medium term.
Dr. the Honourable Renganaden Padayachy has rolled out a set of measures to re-invigorate our strategy for trade and investment, improve business facilitation and address labour shortage issues. This will provide re-assurance to investors, local and foreign, in this highly uncertain and yet increasingly competitive global environment.
We expect the outlay of facilitation initiatives and incentives, including the array of doing business measures, to be crucial enablers in attracting and maintaining high level of investments across high-value and substantive economic activities.
At the same time, these measures will also improve confidence among local enterprises, enable mindset shifts and accelerate the adoption of sustainable and green business practices.
Moreover, as we navigate the increasingly complex and inflationary environment, the Government continues to support businesses, in particular SMEs and entrepreneurs, with a number of enhancements to the financial assistances already in place.
Initiatives are also laid out to level up our island’s long-term competitiveness through investments in sustainability and AI as levers for growth and transformation.
Reforms have been proposed to develop, attract and retain talents, encourage technology and innovation, and boost the appeal of our ICT and financial sector activities in the midst of the intensifying challenge from other international financial centres.
This budget underscores a proactive stance in securing the nation’s future, emphasizing the need for bold, strategic measures to propel Mauritius towards becoming a high-income economy, attaining a GDP of Rs 1 trillion by 2029 and maintaining this status in the longer future.
The EDB will work with all stakeholders to ensure that the initiatives with regard to trade and investment outlined in this budget are implemented effectively. We will continue to provide unwavering support to businesses, big and small, and to foster an environment where innovation thrives and opportunities abound.
In keeping with our tradition, we are providing an analysis and highlights of the budget in this newsletter.
We wish you a pleasant reading.
