Mauritius has cut its growth forecast down to 3.2 percent, Statistics Mauritius reveals, due primarily to negative results in the sugar cane production industry.
The move comes rather soon after the Indian Ocean island country set a 3.6 percent growth forecast in only June of this year.
However, Statistics Mauritius – the central statistics office of the country – this week released a year to date report of results in the economy, citing a slowing in the economy and predicting minimal or negative growth in many industry sectors.
The main area for concern identified in the results is the sugar cane industry – the source of the majority of the country’s export earnings, Mauritius traditionally being a monocrop agriculture-based economy until government policies began pushing for diversification. The latest results cited by Statistics Mauritius put sugarcane production this year at 410,000 tonnes, giving rise to a negative growth of 7 percent. This is a vast decline as compared to sugarcane production growth in 2011, which levelled out at a positive 3.5 percent.
The report also points to difficulties in other industry sectors, in particular flagging results in the construction, textile and hospitality sectors.
The construction sector began its decline in 2011, when figures at year end reported a negative growth of 2 percent. This trend has continued, it would seem, with a further decrease of 1.2 percent.
The country’s important textile industry is also demonstrating disappointing results, leading the statistics office to expect an overall 2.7 percent decline in the sector over 2012. This is a substantial disappointment as compared to last year’s figures, when the textile sector in Mauritius showed a rapid increase of 8 percent.
Of particular trouble is the slowing of the hospitality sector, also a major player in the Mauritian economy. Results to date suggest negative growth confined to 0.5 percent, due to forecasts for tourist arrivals and tourism earnings based on the year to date. Figures indicate that visitor arrivals to the country will reach 960,000 by the end of 2012, signalling a near 5,000 visitor drop on last year’s figures when arrivals totalled 964,642. Earnings are predicted to slide to 42.5 billion Mauritian rupees ($1.4 billion) from 42.8 billion rupees ($1.4 billion) in 2011.
Other sectors of the economy, while not experiencing negative growth, all demonstrate a slowing in positive results as compared to 2011. The statistics office also concludes that investment in the country over the course of 2012 is on the fall, most noticeably in the private sector, as the public sector is seeing occasional boosts.
The new growth forecast by Statistics Mauritius comes only days after the Central Bank of Mauritius also downgraded its growth predictions for the country, announcing a domestic growth forecast of 3.3 percent down from the 3.8 percent the Bank predicted earlier this year.
