Seafood Hub

With an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of 1.9 million square kilometres together with an extended continental shelf area of 396,000 square kilometres, jointly managed with the Seychelles, Mauritius can boast of a sustainable availability of fish, which has effectively supported its seafood industry. This industry has, in turn, developed value-added fisheries and seafood related activities such as fishing, fish transshipment, storage and warehousing, light processing including sorting, grading, cleaning, filleting and canning.  All seafood companies based in Mauritius operate in accordance with EU standards and are Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) registered to ensure the required level of food and safety compliance of their products.  It is estimated that 25% of the overall canned tuna imports by the European Union originates from the Indian Ocean, with Mauritius being one of the two biggest ACP exporters.  

The Indian Ocean is considered as holding the second largest stock of tuna resources and most of the tuna fishing in the EEZ is carried out either by European purse-seiners or East/South East Asian long liners. 

Fish traffic currently handled at Port Louis is around 150,000 tonnes per annum and according to the Port Master Plan 2016 forecast, there exists potential to increase the fish traffic to 250,000 tonnes per annum. 

Currently, there are three fish handling facilities which are operational at Port Louis Harbour which are detailed hereunder: -

The quays located at Trou Fanfaron are managed by the Mauritius Ports Authority (MPA), whilst the other two facilities are operated by Froid des Mascareignes Ltée and Mauritius Freeport Development Co. Ltd (MFDC) respectively.