Nation Branding is today inevitable. A number of nations, old ones and new ones have tested this out and the results speak for themselves. A country can be taken as a brand that is sold and pushed on international markets.

And for Mauritius, now, after some public debates and opinions shared here and there, it is accepted that such an initiative is a necessity. But this Nation Brand has to be constructed from existing, latent attributes and positioned strongly in the required segments.

The Mauritius Industrial Development Authority (Mida) has rightly identified this priority and is currently in the process of defining the textile element of our export brand. Though this initiative seems limited to only one component of our total exports, its has the merit of having started somewhere, with Mida leading the way.

The stakeholders of the Leisure industry have been working on a strategic plan that has brought positive results already. For some time the Board of Investment has been working on its InvestMauritius initiative to promote inward investment. The Financial Services Promotion Authority is regularly involved in thematic road shows in specific jurisdictions to promote our fiscal regime and sound regulatory framework conducive to global business. Other sectors are doing their homework on their little ?islands??

In the midst of such institutional sectoral ?sectarisme?, is there someone who is taking care of the mother Mauritius, or in terms of brand language, our parent brand? The answer is currently, a blunt. NO!

Federate efforts

Taking into account the current reality, we can understand that each of the institutions mentioned above may have to stick to their own ?agenda? as they have to promote specific issues and consider dynamics proper to their sector.

Business-wise, this may sound logical, though in some other countries, all the sectors involved have successfully developed a model of nation branding that allows each individual sector to exist in a continuum and have all converged efforts, financial, logistic, and human resources to promote the national entity. And in general terms, this has proven to be highly cost effective, while bringing above expected results.

Since such a concerted action will not be the case for Mauritius, I would appeal to the Minister of Finance to consider having a project that would on the apex, federate efforts and synergize energies at the sector levels. Brand strategy can easily accommodate this. It?s just a question of adopting the right approach, the right methodology and talk to the right specialists in the field.

Only then the forest will grow, attracting a rich diversity of targets to us and providing better protection to the ?trees? in this cut-throat international jungle. Only then, the parent Mauritius Brand will be in a position to teach the sub-brands (sectors) to mutually respect and show solidarity to all other sectors.

<B>Ashraf Oozeerally

www.eye-dentity4future.biz</B>