Current environmental issues: Water pollution, degradation of Mauritius received independence from England in 1968, and at that time was a monocrop economy: sugar cane. Over the last 30 years Mauritius has expanded its economy to four other areas: textiles, tourism, and banking. It is this success that has drawn parallels with Singapore, another island-state ahead of the regional development curve. Now the new government, elected last year, is making a push into a fifth sector: information technology (IT), also following in Singapore's footsteps.

"We hope to be the regional leader in IT," said Sushil K. C. Khushiram, Minister of Economic Development, Financial Services, and Corporate Affairs. "And we believe that the Cyber City that we are building will be key toward that goal."

The Cyber City right now is 150 acres of sugar cane. But thanks to a partnership with the Indian government, which is supplying $100million, and expert advisors, including Devendra Chaudry as the CEO of the new venture, by next year it will be well on its way to becoming a campus both physically and virtually.

"It will be completed in about a year and a half," said Chaudry, who spent 20 years in the Indian civil service. "It's a city about four things. The first two, workspace and bandwidth are immediate projects, to be followed by IT education and human resources. The business andl egal framework will be ongoing throughout."

Chaudry seemed very lonely in his brand new office on the top floor of a high-rise building in Rosehill, a nearby suburb of Port Louis. The office windows overlooked what will become the Cyber City. Save Chaudry, the rest of the floor remained empty. Furniture with plastic scraps still hanging in places filled the freshly dusted office.

While Mauritius has been hailed in the past decade as an African success story, of late its economy has been faltering. The growth ratefor the past 20 years averaged 5.4 percent last year fell to 3.6 percent in 2000. And unemployment has been rising steadily in the past five years from 6.4 percent in 1999 to 8.7 percent now, with some analysts predicting 10 percent by the end of this year (although sub-Saharan Africa's average is 26 percent). The decline is what helped elect a new government last year, a coalition between now Prime Minister Anerood Jugnauth and deputy Prime Minister Paul Berenger. The pair are a familiar fixture in the Mauritius political scene, the same coalition was in power in the 1980's. But, they said, there is a lot to be fixed from the last administration.

"There is the perception that something must bedone," said an advisor in the Prime Minister's office, who wished to remain unnamed. "We are putting out fires as they happen, our inheritance from the last government's incompetence."

Indeed, the textile sector has been coming under increasing competition from Madagascar and mainland African countries, which have the cheap labor not only to manufacture, but the land, to grow the raw materials needed for production. Mauritius has to import, not only the raw materials to produce textiles, but guest laborers from China as well. They benefit from such trade agreements like the Lome Accord, which gives them duty-free access to export textiles to Europe, and the US African Rough Opportunity Act (AROA), which extends similar privileges.

"I think that they are right in putting their confidence in AROA, it is tailor written for the Mauritius situation," said Robert E. Gribben, Charge d'Affairs, and acting American ambassador to Mauritius. "There is a lot of attention turning to the US market right now in terms of textiles and other exports from sub-Saharan Africa."

But despite these agreements, exports have been suffering. Overall exports between 1998 and 1999, the last year of available data, dropped by 23 million rupees (the equivalent of about $800,000), and have been continuing to drop offaccording to government sources. The Mauritian rupee (MUR) has also become increasingly devalued: the exchange rate in 1996 for USD was roughly 18 MUR, asof January 2001 it was 27 MUR, and in August 2001 it reached 30 MUR.

"There is no question we need it," said Henri Marimootoo, an award winning Mauritian journalist. "We need a life-line. With sugar and textiles failing, we need to look for other, newer sources of income."

While the sugar market globally has taken a beating in the past few years, Mauritius has been particularly affected by a devastating drought in the 1990's. Undeterred the government has already begun a partnership with Mozambique to develop land there for sugar cane, and to loan their expertise in the field.

The other, newer two sectors of the Mauritian economy have been growing. Banking has the highest growth, with offshore activities playing a key role. Tourism has leveled off with hotel occupancy at a steady 72percent, and no plans to build new resorts in the near future, according to Christopher T. Najbicz, the president of the Association of Hotels and Restaurants in Mauritius (AHRIM).

"The global slowdown is mirrored in the leisure traveler; there is an impact on disposable income, and a tightening of belts.The more the world economy slows down the more proactive, more aggressive we must be in promoting our product, exposing Mauritius more," said Najbicz,who is also the Manager of Mauritius's only business focused Hotel, La Bourdonnais in Port Louis. Plans have been approved to build a second business hotel next year.

However, in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, Mauritius's building plans--like those of most other economies around the world--have been thrown into uncertainty.

While it's clear that the majority of the 8,500 hotel rooms in Mauritius are taken by vacationers enjoying the idyllic beaches and reefs, the very existence and demand for business hotels shows the island's increasing economic diversification. And IT development, argued Marc-Herni Ravaux, country manager for Microsoft's operation for the islands of the Indian Ocean, is essential for sustainable economic development, but it is not the short term fix that the government is looking to help cross the breeches made by the decline of textiles and sugar.

"The government really believes that IT in five years will employ 5,000 people," said Ravaux. "It is a long term response, not a short term investment. Mauritius today is not really mature, there are many different problems to be tackled first, such as bandwidth and education."

The bandwidth problem is both created and solved with Mauritius Telecom, which has a monopoly of all telecommunications on the island until 2006. It was Mauritius Telecom that signed onto the SAFE project that is laying fiber optic cables up and down the Indian Ocean, the same project that already supplies most of Southeast Asia with high-speed Internet connections. But how much bandwidth is bought is at the mercy of Mauritius Telecom, which is partly owned by France Telecom, as the system becomes available to Mauritius at the end of this year. And, although the university is launching a Mauritius Institute of Technology this year, Ravaux said that there are simply not enough tech-educated workers right now to cope with an influx of software companies. In fact, Ravaux said, most medium and smaller companies are not only computer illiterate, they are computer leery.

"But this could all change in the next few years. The Mauritius people are learning fast, we see that in the number of PC sales that is increasing," said Ravaux. "We have been here for four years, and we remain eagerly watching these new developments."

Minister Khushiram agreed, saying that investments intechnology and education can never go wrong. "There is a difference between what one wants and what one needs. Here in Mauritius we both want and need the cyber city."