[ISL] "Seychelles Plans Blue Bonds to Develop Sustainable Fisheries"

[rfmcdonald]

Bloomberg's Paul Richardson writes about the Seychelles' green fisheries initiative.

Seychelles, an Indian Ocean archipelago off the East African coast, plans to offer so-called blue bonds, which fund the development of sustainable fisheries, to investors later this year.

The country’s Treasury is in talks with multilateral agencies including the African Development Bank and the World Bank to facilitate the sale of $10 million of the government-backed debt, Finance Minister Jean-Paul Adam said in a phone interview Jan. 22 from the capital, Victoria. The securities are modeled on green bonds, which channel their proceeds to projects that save energy, curb pollution and recycle resources.

“If you’re going to finance a fishing business it will be generally seen as a risky business and will be costed accordingly,” Adam said. “We hope to absorb this risk. And the involvement of the multilateral agencies will help reduce the cost so we get an affordable interest rate.”

Seychelles is considering the debt as its $169 million of bonds due January 2026 outperform other sub-Saharan African nations, returning 2.6 percent this year compared with an average loss of 2.9 percent among 17 countries on the continent tracked by Bloomberg. The commercial fishing industry in Seychelles, which has Africa’s biggest tuna-canning factory, is dominated by companies including Thai Union Group Pcl, Thailand’s largest seafood exporter. Fisheries account for about 1 percent of the country’s $1.4 billion economy, according to World Bank and African Development Bank data.