11 Comments

A fascinating article. I remember in the 1980s that my high school participated in a Model UN. Since we joined late, we represented Seychelles.

It is very interesting to read about the unique characteristics that made Socialism work better in Seychelles than in other nations. It does not seem like a very scalable long-term model for development (i.e. lots of money from overseas).

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There is probably other opportunities like becoming a haven for digital nomads which is becoming an increasing large segment of the global workforce. For that one should take cues from Estonia.

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Another stellar summary.

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As a fun economic measurement, I looked up AirBnB prices for the whole of May. The cheapest in the Seychelles' capital was R22,000 for a room (communal bathroom). On Reunion, which stayed French, there was a room in a shared house for R12,000. In Durban South Africa, there's a 3-bed duplex for R11,000.

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Great article! Thanks for sharing

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Interesting stuff! You should cover Guyana and Suriname at some point too.

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I touched Guyana a bit in this article on the World Bank's Income update:

https://yawboadu.substack.com/p/world-bank-data-2022-update?r=garki&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&open=false

Guyana went from an impoverished state to the fastest growing economy due Exxon's discovery of oil in Guyana in 2015. It went from 0 oil reserves to 11B giving it similar oil reserves per capita to Gulf States.

But the next country I plan to talk about is Indonesia then Mauritius.

I have articles on 20 African countries and some on East Asia, North America, and Europe. If you look through the archive I am sure you'll find interesting things about different countries!

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I love your analysis of these countries no one can find on a map…myself included. Yacht registry as a business model. Who had that on their bingo card. Great analysis.

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This is great. I have a few old friends who emigrated there. Fascinating to learn about the country.

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I'm not sure how much yacht registrations and tax havens are a sustainable way for small developing countries. At some point the world will get saturated. There is a global crackdown on tax havens using the global minimum corporate tax and other measures.

The same thing can also be said about tourism but as long as global middle class keeps growing and air fairs keep getting cheaper you'll still have a future.

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I agree there is a global crack down on tax havens

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_tax_haven_blacklist#:~:text=Following%20this%20latest%20revision%20in,%2C%20US%20Virgin%20Islands%2C%20Vanuatu.

I definitely think that yacht registrations and tax havens are not a sustainable way to grow.. Hopefully with the country becoming more capitalistic and with their highly educated workforce, entrepreneurs could make a business that can improve the economy instead of relying on government enterprises for tax revenue.

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