Little Mauritius is threatened like never before. Sugar: Under the sugar protocol with the European Union, it exported all its sugar at four times the world price. This largely explains the Mauritius economic miracle.
Another important source of income for the island nation is the canned tuna industry, with one large cannery on the Island owned by the U.K. Company Princes Foods, a subsidiary of the Japanese Mitsubishi Corporation.
Currently even the country’s tuna exports are threatened. They have been exporting tuna to the EU for years. Now this has been targeted by Thailand and Philippines the way that their sugar has been. But Mauritius politicians think they can still strike a deal on this.
Now there is a review of agriculture rules at the WTO, renewal of the agreement between the European Union, Asia-Pacific and Caribbean countries plus a direct challenge by (sugar producers) Brazil and Australia. They are challenging the sugar protocol at the WTO. So sugar is threatened. But luckily the agriculture minister has the costs in the sugar industry by 30-40 per cent by centralising factories, using bagasse for electricity production.