Regional Integration and Blue Economy: The Case Study of Seychelles

Using data between 2005 and 2022 on essential variables such as fish production, export of goods and employment, completed with qualitative data, this study teases out the impact of the blue economy on economic growth, expressed as gross domestic product with Seychelles as a case study. The multiple regression model was used to analyze the quantitative data in SPSS Version 20 and Wordstat 7 software for the qualitative data. Results showed that employment of foreign workers in the blue economy and exporting goods via Port Victoria were significant at the 5% level. Employment in the fishery sector for foreign workers increased steadily from 2009 to 2022. Moreover, tourism and fisheries are the primary sources of employment in Seychelles, providing employment directly and indirectly to about 75% of the Seychellois population. Fish production was the only variable that wasn’t significant. While the annual fish production in Seychelles is 326,806 MT, a steady increase has occurred between 2005 and 2022. Information gathered from the key informants indicated an increase in the partnership Seychelles has signed with the European Union, Mayotte, Taiwan, Mauritius, China and Korea. The export of goods averaged 40.88 million USD from 2005 until 2023, reaching an all-time high of 82.51 million USD in March 2019 and a record low of 7.83 million USD in January 2021. Seychelles is still largely a mono-economy and highly dependent on tourism. Therefore, the blue economy offers enormous potential for diversification and the Blue Economy Roadmap of Seychelles should be revised to achieve this objection.