«Les études sont concluantes et un appel devrait être lancé prochainement…» Le Premier ministre a annoncé, à l’issue de la cérémonie du «rebranding» d’Orange, au centre Swami Vivekananda à Pailles, vendredi 25 mars que le projet de faire du Central Electricity Boardun fournisseur d’internetsera concrétisé d’ici la fin de l’année 2016.

En effet, c’est en début de l’année dernière, qu’une source bien placée avait indiqué qu’une équipe du CEB travaillait sur ce dossier depuis quelques semaines déjà. L’objectif étant de couvrir tout le pays et si possible de baisser le prix d’Internet.

Lors de son allocution, le Premier ministre a également tenu à rassurer la population sur les projets qui avait été annoncés par son gouvernement. «My Government is committed to make things happen in all sectors of the economy and nothing, absolutely nothing, will prevent us from implementing our economic and social programmes throughout this year and beyond», a notamment fait ressortir SAJ.

Autre nouveauté annoncée: une connexion jusqu’à 100 Mbps. Le Chief Executive Officer de MT, Sherry Singh, a affirmé que la compagnie a investi lourdement pour que cette offre soit une réalité et que dès 2017, Maurice sera couvert par la fibre optique à 100 %.

Une initiative que salue sir Anerood Jugnauth dans son discours et d’ajouter que c’est une bonne nouvelle pour la croissance économique du pays.

As I have said several times since the beginning of the year, the Economy should take centre stage in 2016, to accelerate our growth rate, to create wealth for the Nation in order to sustain our social goals, to solve our unemployment problem especially youth unemployment and to prepare ground work in our quest to transform ourselves into a high income society by 2030.Despite some adverse winds and unforeseen circumstances, I wish to assure and to confirm that the Government is well on track as regards its economic agenda which I have put in front of the nation in my Economic Mission Statement and at several meetings with the Private Sector.

My Government is committed to make things happen in all sectors of the economy and nothing, absolutely nothing, will prevent us from implementing our economic and social programmes throughout this year and beyond.

Only last week, BOI signed off two important Letters of Intent for the implementation of 2 mega projects, together worth more than 10 billion rupees of investment, of which at least one billion rupees will be injected during the current calendar year.

Works are expected to start in the next few weeks, by the end of next month I am told, and should lead to the creation of several hundreds of jobs in the construction sector and the spill overs should be felt in the other sectors as the billions of rupees filter through the economy. By the end of the year, I expect a further injection of at least 20 billion rupees of both public and private investments as they go through the various approval procedures

As far as our agenda to revolutionize our digital and broadband economy is concerned, I also wish to state that we are on track to diversify the provision of back haul internet service which will certainly lead to access price reduction and supply expansion.

The Central Electricity Board has commissioned a feasibility study to use its existing high tension aerial network to supply broadband internet. The study is conclusive and execution of the project will take place before the end of the year as it goes through the normal tender process for the appointment of consultants and the work contractor.

Furthermore, as announced in the last budget, Government has already taken action to implement the Third Submarine Fibre Optic Cable Project which will connect us including Rodrigues Island to Africa, Europe and Asia.

This project which will require an estimated investment injection of 3 billion rupees will significantly enhance the provision of international bandwidth capacity and will definitely stimulate competition in the telecommunication industry while improving price and market efficiency for the benefit of all stakeholders. The project has already received more than a dozen expressions of interest for financing. These are currently being assessed for further action.

These two projects together with all the various measures that have already been undertaken by the stakeholders of the Industry will definitely translate into reality our vision to reach a 100% internet broadband penetration rate by 2020.

In the next 4 or 5 years every single household and every enterprise should be provided with ultra-high broadband facilities at the most competitive price.

We need however in the same breath to take all precautions so that we protect personal privacy, security of data and as importantly thwarting cybercrime and terrorism.

But, after all, we need to acknowledge the powerful impact that digitalisation can bring to our economy.

Today, we are moving ahead with zeal and determination to realize three major projects that will make our Cyber Island dream draw closer to reality. These are the Rose Belle Business Park project, the Rivière du Rempart Technopark project and the Heritage City mega Work, Live and Play project.

Thanks to the technology mix of “fibre to the home” and “fibre through the air” and soon with the introduction of white space technology, we will be already embarking on the exciting journey towards a new economic miracle for our country.