The Philippines and Seychelles inked two agreements this week, part of new areas of cooperation between the two island nations.

In a one-on-one interview with Manila Bulletin, visiting Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Seychelles Ambassador Maurice Loustau-Lalanne disclosed that one of the agreements has to do with his country’s tourism academy partnership with Lyceum of the Philippines specifically the faculty that deals with tourism and hotel management.

“The agreement will provide an exchange of lecturers and students,” said Ambassador Loustau-Lalanne.

“That means Filipino lecturers can come to Seychelles at our expense and they will lecture our students in key areas where the Philippines had an advantage, for example in area of health tourism like massage, sauna or certain medical tourism intervention.”

“As Seychelles is a five-star holiday destination, some students or any other students from the ASEAN who are studying in the Philippines can get exposed and get their practical training in Seychelles and get a different experience,” he added.

According to Loustau-Lalanne, who studied Aviation in the United Kingdom, the agreement can be implemented swiftly, hopefully within a year.

On the other hand, the second agreement signed during Loustau-Lalanne’s visit is strictly bilateral cooperation between the foreign affairs ministry of the two countries.

The two governments are also looking at some other areas in trade and investment.

“We have certain amount of imports from the Philippines, items like furniture, canned fruit, and other canned food products,” said Ambassador Loustau-Lalanne, who is visiting the Philippines for the first time. “We think there are new areas in promoting our small and micro medium enterprises especially for tourism products.”

Source:
courtesy of MANILA BULLETIN

by Roy Mabasa

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