(Seychelles News Agency) - As part of the Global Entrepreneurship Week through a collaboration with businesses from the Chengdu  Province in China, the Enterprise Seychelles Agency (ESA) is planning a trade fair for the benefit of Seychellois entrepreneurs.

The trade fair will coincide with the first inaugural flight from Chengdu, a direct and non-stop charter flight operated by Sichuan Airlines, due in Seychelles next week.

Around 34 Chinese businesses are expected to come to Seychelles on that flight to showcase what they have to offer and essentially establish a more direct link to Seychellois businesses.

The chief executive of ESA, Lisa Lautoy, explained that there have been reports from Seychellois businesses that they experience certain difficulties when attempting to contact suppliers in China.

"They want direct contact without having to go through an intermediary. We feel that this is an opportune moment for these businesses to build up on these contacts and analyse different kinds of new equipment available. This may in turn help the businesses here to become more innovative, especially in regards to product development," she said.

Lautoy said, "The exhibitors from China have shown a lot of interest in displaying agricultural equipment, however, there will be representatives of different sectors such as manufacturing, tourism and hoteliers, beekeeping as well as crafts."

She confirmed that apart from the Chinese representatives, there will also be the presence of several local businesses at the fair.

"These are businesses that are not common, people are not aware of them, so we are giving them the opportunity to showcase what they have to offer. We will also have two local companies that aim to facilitate importation from China present," she added. 

The trade fair will be held at the Berjaya Beauvallon Bay Hotel starting Thursday, November  21 to 23.

The press conference panel comprised Jeevan Palani, CEO Enterprise Seychelles Agency, Lautoy and Annabelle Adrienne. (Seychelles News Agency) Photo License: CC-BY

Global Entrepreneurship Week

In regards to the Global Entrepreneurship Week, the director general for Policy, Planning, Research, Monitoring and Evaluation from the Ministry of Investment, Entrepreneurship and Industry, Jeevan Palani, said that apart from the trade fair, there will also be a variety of other activities organised.

"On Monday, we will have a financial awareness fair that will explore different funding opportunities available in Seychelles. There will be bank representatives, certain government entities that have funds to offer, ESA with the seed capital and several other agencies. The ministry is looking at different issues that entrepreneurs face and one of them is access to finance. This will be from 10.30 am to 3 pm at Camion Hall."

Palani added that on Tuesday there will be a Crowd Funding Awareness Forum that will specifically target students.

"We will have two speakers - one who is an established business in Mauritius who runs a crowd-funding firm. He will talk about what they do, what they offer, and what the business is exactly. The other speaker is a Seychellois who has benefited from crow-funding," he explained.

Next Tuesday, there will also be an Impact Assessment Workshop that is being done in partnership with the UNDP. 

Palani explained that "this will be for entrepreneurs and government officials, to explain the impact that businesses have, especially focusing on the sustainable development goals."

The workshop will be a closed event held at the Seychelles Bureau of Standards (SBS).

"Apart from the workshop, we will also have an open day for the SBS on Tuesday. This will be for entrepreneurs, where they will be able to see what kind of facilities for product testing are available at the SBS," he added.

Palani explained that the rest of the week will be the trade fair and confirmed that the ministry had also thought of the people based in the Praslin and La Digue region.

"We will also be doing an SME fair on Praslin; this will be on Saturday. We want people from Praslin to have access to this information," he added.