A senior Mauritian trade official has said Chinese industrialists are encouraged to invest in various sectors in the Indian Ocean island country. 

"Our future relationship with China should be in the field of increasing investment from China," Mauritian Minister of Industry and International Trade Jaya Krishna Cuttaree said in Port Louis in a recent exclusive interview.

"We have very good political relationship with China and all along now we have been trying to develop trade relationship between the two countries," he said.

Although Mauritius has a very strong balance of trade deficit with China, he said, this can be compensated by growing investment from China.

Mauritius is a member of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa and the Southern African Development Community, both of which are huge regional markets. The island country also has duty-free and quota-free access to the European and American markets.

"They are preferential markets, and using Mauritius as a place to operate can give Chinese businessmen access to these markets which China cannot get on its own," Cuttaree said.

Sino-Mauritian trade had been on the rise in recent years, an action plan on the specific steps for cooperation between China and Africa over the next three years is expected to be consider at present.

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