Ebène, 4 August 2021: The National Productivity and Competitiveness Council (NPCC) launched today the flagship report entitled ‘Mauritius Productivity Study’ which provides a strong insight into the challenges faced by the country in terms of productivity and serves as a guide to policy and decision makers.
The report is based on the work of a diverse team of experts and practitioners in the business environment and private sector development fields. It draws on extensive surveys of a representative sample of firms by firm size, region, and sector implemented in 2020. The NPCC obtained the technical collaboration of the World Bank to conduct survey and draft the flagship report.
A total of 732 firms, of varying sizes and sectors, were surveyed between February and November 2020. The Mauritius Productivity Study scrutinizes the experience of businesses in conjunction with concrete outcomes such as productivity and employment with direct linkages to the economic wellbeing of the population of Mauritius.
Incorporating firm-level data and self-reported experiences of firms with statistical analysis to pinpoint the relationships among variables, the report surfaces revealing patterns in the data with important policy implications.
Some of the findings of the report pertain to the trends in productivity and innovation. “Mauritius’s economy has been characterized by sustained growth over the last several decades. While early growth was driven by structural transformations—first toward, then away from manufacturing—this trend is no longer as visible," the report highlights. The report further notes that “Mauritius lags other high-income economies in terms of revenue per worker; the island economy is much more on par with economies in the upper-middle-income category”.
The report concluded that the country generally performs in line with its peers in terms of innovation as measured by the Global Innovation Index, but there are weaknesses in regards to private innovation (for example, the low Research and Development intensity), and policymaking is hindered by the absence of data on private innovation.
To continue to drive productivity growth, the authors of the report are of the view that focus should be paid on opening cross-sectoral support linkages, supporting broad investment in education programmes that prepare people for work, as well as fostering outward orientation across all sectors in the economy.
“It is the first time that such a study has been conducted in Mauritius and we are glad that this report highlights our main weaknesses in terms of productivity and brings in a set of recommendations in different areas such as wages, skills, training and policies,” says the Executive Director of the NPCC, Mr. Ashit Gungah. He adds further that the report will be very useful to all stakeholders in Mauritius especially amid the harsh business environment marred by the impact of the Covid-19.
The Mauritius Productivity Survey was written under the supervision of Joshua S. Wimpey (Enterprise Surveys DECEA, World Bank Group) by a core team of authors from both the World Bank and from representatives from important Mauritian stakeholders.
The report can be downloaded here.
Click here to download the press release.
The Mauritius Productivity Survey in the media
Mauritius Productivity Survey (Business Magazine - 04.08.21)
86% des entreprises sondées ont fermé à un moment ou un autre pendant la pandémie (Défi Quotidien - 05.08.21)
Le NPCC a obtenu la collaboration technique de la Banque mondiale pour mener une enquête et rédiger le ‘Flagship report’ (ION News - 05.08.21)
L'économie mauricienne s'apparente davantage à celle des pays à revenu moyen (l'express - 05.08.21)