(Seychelles News Agency) - Fresh fruits, vegetables and other products from Reunion Island will soon reach the Seychelles market, giving customers more choices, local importers say.

Four local companies made a two-day visit to Reunion last month to explore trade opportunities after Seychelles lifted an import ban early this year on fruits and vegetables from the island. The ban had dated back to the 1990s.

Speaking to SNA, the chief executive of the Seychelles Trading Company (STC), Veronique Laporte, said, “I was very impressed with the industries I visited, especially the fruits and vegetables, and this is why I’m happy that the embargo has been lifted.”

Laporte added that: “They’ve got some very good products and with good negotiations, we should be able to have these products here.”

The Seychelles Trading Company, the largest importer of goods to the Seychelles, an archipelago in the western Indian Ocean, was accompanied on the visit by the Global Supply Centre (GSC), Constance Hotels and Resorts and Skychef.

Following the visit, STC has introduced new rice and tomato ketchup from Reunion Island on the local market, and Laporte said the response has been very good.

STC also hopes to import a wide range of fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as meat products and others.

STC has already started to introduce rice and tomato ketchup from Reunion Island on the local market. (Seychelles Tading Company) Photo License: CC-BY

Venu Gopal, the manager of the GSC, which also imports food products from across the globe, said his company is definitely tapping into this new market.

“Reunion Island offers quality products at competitive prices, and we are very interested in selling their products in Seychelles,” said Gopal.

GSC will soon be importing pineapple, litchis as well as tomatoes and are now looking at transport options to see whether it is more viable by air or by sea.

Another local company, ISPC, though not part of the delegation to Reunion, says the lifting of the ban is a new opportunity to source fresh fruits and vegetables from a close island in the Indian Ocean.

ISPC imports mainly from the Rungis international market, the biggest fresh products platform in Europe located in Paris.

The company’s chief executive, Alfred Fourcroy, said that “if the Reunion products are more competitive and qualitative, ISPC will start doing business.”

Fourcroy added that: “The real opportunity will rely obviously on the prices and the transport means and costs which still have to be studied.”

The visit was organised by Club Export, a group of businesses in Reunion Island which promotes export from the island nation.

Club Export has also discussed and agreed with Air Austral that as of October, the two-hour Air Austral flight to Seychelles will be done in the morning at 8.30am instead of the evening.