Since the signed and Cabinet-approved revision of the long-standing DTAA treaty between India and Mauritius, there has been a lot of comment on the potential downsides, the significant economic impact analysed by Moody's, the difficulties of a short transition period for operators, the imbalance with other international centres channelling FDI into India and many other aspects. The MOU signed off in July 2015, and approved by our Cabinet, signalled a major triumph of powerful revenue and finance Indian bureaucrats who, at last, held the upper hand and a signed outcome, publicly praised by our own negotiating team, that even Indian political overlords, had they wished or desired a different outcome, would have found extremely difficult to pitch for. In essence, India could not be “plus royaliste que le roi”.
Excerpts:
“True also that our offshore sector and political nexus may not have done enough to thwart the growing negative perception of Mauritius by entrenched top-notch Indian bureaucrats, while several other competing centres were lying low and were spared the onus. The status-quo ante was probably harder to maintain against such a rising tide but where we may have lost out, through a largely inexperienced negotiating team, are on far better treaty renegotiation terms...”
“Was inexperience of international poker-pressure negotiations the only reason that facilitated the cardinal July 2015 outcome? We understand that the apparently generous tied-in grant of 350 million$ India waved in front of a political team that had been actively scouting the world for international investors in the property deal dubbed Heritage City, could have been judged extremely rewarding and was duly announced as such by Minister Bhadain. A great prize but, as it turned out later, little better than the 200 million offered ten years previously to former Minister Sithanen...”Mauritius Times
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