(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Mauritius, an island nation off the coast of continental Africa in the southwest Indian Ocean, may be the location of environmentally friendly outsourced hosting and IT services in the near future.
Mauritius is positioned to use an innovative Sea Water Air Conditioning system that pumping jets of cool ocean water from nearly two kilometers (1.25 miles) below the sea to provide renewable energy cooling for data centers, according to an article on tech blog Ulitizer.com. The author also notes that the political stability of the island nation makes it an attractive place for disaster recovery and business continuity planning.
Outlined last year in the AfricaFocus Bulletin by African ICT market analyst and editor of the weekly Balancing Act News Update (www.balancingact-africa.com) Russell Southwood, Mauritius’s “Cyber-Island Strategy” is the government’s effort to spur investment in the country’s IT outsourcing potential.
Launched in Ebene, about nine miles (15 km) south of the capital, the Cybercity business park project was started in November 2001, to help attract companies, which could take advantage of Mauritius’ low corporate tax rates, free repatriation of profits, and exemption from customs duties. As well, the government has allowed international professionals to more easily work there with a new Green Card.
“Mauritius remains unique in its region in having identified ICT as a fifth pillar of its economy alongside sugar, textiles, tourism and financial services,” Southwood stated. “However, it not only described a compelling vision but it went out and put it into practice. … the need for cheaper bandwidth became an essential part of delivering this vision.”
The government hopes to pursue a strategy to create knowledge-based jobs in a variety of strands. First-of-all, Mauritius wants to attract call centers, business process outsourcing and computer software programming, secondly, it wanted to take advantage of the bilingual capability of its citizens who speak both French and English; and finally, it wanted to attract computer assembly work.
While an island off the coast of Madagascar is clearly not an ideal place for hosting, France Telecom has invested in fiber connections between Mauritius and the mainland, which makes more sense than satellite connectivity.
