President James Michel and Cabinet Secretary in the Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Amina Mohamed, have discussed the visit of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta to Seychelles later this year.

This was during a call Ms Mohamed made on President Michel at State House yesterday morning.

Ms Mohamed is leading a delegation here on a return visit at the invitation of Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Paul Adam to continue talks started when the minister visited Kenya in March this year.

On Monday, Minister Adam and Ms Mohamed signed a general cooperation agreement which provides the necessary framework to have a joint commission between Seychelles and Kenya very soon. The Kenyan delegation working visit ended yesterday.

“We have a great deal of issues to discuss including the ways to develop partnership for economic development, regional security, cultural exchanges as well as how to improve air connectivity and trade between our two countries. We have many shared interests in the Indian Ocean, as neighbouring countries with a common vision for the blue economy, an African brand of tourism and close cooperation in defence and maritime security. I welcome the interest also from the Kenyan business community to increase trade and investment, with more business delegations planning visits to Seychelles,” said President Michel.

They also discussed areas in which Seychelles and Kenya can enhance their bilateral relations, such as in tourism, maritime safety, and the possibility of future trade and investment between the two countries, among others.

Speaking to the press after her meeting with President Michel, Ms Mohamed said her visit to Seychelles was very fruitful, noting that she was also accompanied by the chairman of the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry Kiprono Kittony, who has met the chairman of the Seychelles Chamber of Commerce and Industry Marco Francis as well as a number of businessmen.

“We’ve brought along our chairman from this chamber. He has held very good talks with the chairman of the Seychelles Chamber of Commerce and Industry, he has also met businessmen and they have agreed on a number of steps that they will be taking. Kenyan businessmen and investors will soon visit Seychelles and two Seychellois investors and businessmen will also visit Kenya. So it’s been a very fruitful and productive visit…  I think you will be seeing a lot more Kenyans coming to Seychelles and more Seychellois going to Kenya,” said Ms Mohamed.

“On tourism we have agreed that we are going to start exploring marketing Kenya and Seychelles together. We are very close together, we are two and a half hours away from each other and so it is not a long trip that tourists have to make to visit any of our shores.

We discussed the issue of air services and cruise liners. I think we can have a very successful cruise tourism if we come to some formal arrangement,” added Ms Mohamed.

With home affairs they discussed issues of security like maritime safety, transnational organised crime – be it drug trafficking, trafficking of people, piracy including terrorism, prisoner transfer.

Forrás: www.nation.sc