Mauritius To Establish Financial Services Commission

Mandy Robinson, Tax-news.com, London

02 March 2001

Mauritius' Minister of Economic Planning and Development, Sushil Kushiram, has announced government plans to set up a financial services commission (FSC) to monitor the county's stock exchange, offshore business activities and the insurance industry.

Speaking to the Mauritius media this week, Kushiram explained: 'The Commission would also supervise non-regulated or partly regulated non-banking activities such as fund management, pension schemes and management, collective investment schemes, investment advisory services and leasing.'

In conjunction to the FSC an advisory council will be established to help guide the development of financial services in the country and to act as an information centre to keep the industry in touch with the latest international trends. It is also expected that the government will create a body with the responsibility of promoting key aspects and awareness amongst financial sector workers including marketing and regular training programmes. The Economic Planning and Development Minister said: 'The proposal is to put forward the concept of global business as a first step towards the integration of the onshore and offshore sectors.'

'An assessment would be carried out after two years and in the light of its findings, the FSC would be integrated with the Bank of Mauritius into a single unified regulatory framework for the whole financial services sector of the island,' Kushiram added

To support the new commission Kushiram also indicated that new legislation including a companies bill and a trust bill is set to be put before Parliament sometime this month.

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