The story of two sisters: Industrial growth in Reunion and Mauritius facing the twenty-first century (11)

Theme Track: Regional Competitiveness - Regional Disparities

Authors:
Dimou, Michel ; Schaffar, Alexandra

Reunion and Mauritius are two islands in the indian ocean, distant of less than 200 kilometers, with many demographic, social and cultural similarities. For three centuries the two islands have followed the same path of development. But, while Mauritius, a former british colony accessed independance in the late sixties, the Reunion island became a french overseas department in 1946. The different institutional frameworks in the second half of the twentieth century have thus led to a different industrial history. And while, Mauritius was attracting international capital in order to form a new textile agglomeration within the indian ocean, the Reunion island was getting more and more dependent of the french centralized overseas policy. During the nineties, both islands are working towards the same direction, in order to become the financial and technological services center of the west indian ocean, from Bombay to Cape Town. In this competition, each of these islands have its own advantages and desadvantages related to the different historical pathways followed during the last twenty years. This paper aims to present this differentiation of trajectories and the way that each island searches to overpower its opponent in the battle for the leadership in this part of the world. This evolutionary analysis is based on some econometric studies applied on macroeconomic data for the two islands, from 1982 to 2000.

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