President Ramkalawan invited to attend Coral Festival in the Maldives   |27 July 2022

Mr Nasheed with President Ramkalawan at State House (Photo: Louis Toussaint)

President Wavel Ramkalawan has been invited to attend the Coral Festival in the Maldives next year.

The invitation was extended by the Speaker of the Parliament and former President of the Republic of Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, during a courtesy call on President Ramkalawan yesterday morning at State House.

The focus of discussions between the two leaders were on matters pertaining to how both countries can benefit from each other as Maldives and Seychelles have a lot of ideology in common.

“Both our countries have a lot in common, especially now that President Ramkalawan, after a long struggle, won the election in 2020. The President and his government are in the process of consolidating democracy which is something we are also trying to do in the Maldives. Maldives and Seychelles have a lot of ideology in common.”

Speaker Nasheed further noted that they discussed matters such as environment – protection of corals.

“Next year we are organising a coral festival in the Maldives and I invited President Ramkalawan to attend. We also requested the President and Seychelles to explain to other coral countries the work that you have done in debt restructuring, especially debt to environment swap. This is an area where Seychelles have more experience than other islands. I feel that is for the benefit of all islands like Sri Lanka, Maldives, Mauritius, Reunion and the Comoros. When we are linked together and working with each other we become stronger and I am sure with your government we can achieve that.”

Speaking about the fishing sector, Speaker Nasheed acknowledged that they did talk about the topic. “In Maldives we do pole and end line fishing and we also have our fishing fleet, which is very traditional. The fishermen process their fish and export them and we benefit a lot from it. For sure we can share the same experience with the people of Seychelles.”

Regarding the quota proposed by the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission to maintain a healthy level of tuna in our ocean, Speaker Nasheed said that “the IOTC decides on the catch of tuna. The Europeans fish in Seychelles’ waters and we have to agree on the amount of fish that is caught. The Maldives would like to impress upon everyone that it is the method of fishing which is very important. We have to maintain the Indian Ocean stock and we all have to look after the environment, meanwhile we have to be mindful of the methods of fishing”.

Vidya Gappy