Organised jointly by the European Commission and the Government of Mauritius, this event is a follow-up of the first global forum on International Migration and Development held in Brussels in July 2007, where Mauritius presented a paper on circular migration and proposed a Circular Migration Pilot project.

The workshop is meant to bring together countries from various world regions to exchange experiences and best practices and to better prepare the ground for concrete policies, legislation and programmes to facilitate circular migration.

The current workshop has also a two-fold objective. Firstly, to use the Mauritian development-focused model to more clearly define and operationalise the concept of circular migration in order to maximize opportunities and benefits for both origin and destination countries. Secondly, to establish a process that brings together interested source and destination countries from both developed and developing regions for possible pilot projects.

Present at the opening ceremony, the acting Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Dr. Vasant Bunwaree, said that circular migration can add a totally new dimension to the labour policy and make significant contribution to raise the productivity, knowledge, skills of workers. He also announced that Mauritius wants to develop a Circular Migration Pilot project whereby Mauritians will be allowed to work abroad, build their skills, save money, and on their return find employment in new sectors or start a business.

Dr. Bunwaree added that Mauritius has already prepared the grounds for the return of the circular migrants through the promotion of business opportunities and development of small and medium enterprises. He further stated that over the next ten years the Government of Mauritius will be investing some 4 billion euros on infrastructure and this would attract FDI and the Mauritian diaspora; the aim is to offer returning migrants the same facilities in which they would have lived abroad.

For her part, Mrs. Claudia Wiedey, Head of Delegation of the European Commission in Mauritius, stated that the through this workshop, the European Commission wants to achieve concrete results, identify real experiences and set up operational projects involving source and destination countries.