The plan to lay a 1,900-km submarine fibre-optic cable between Victoria and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on the African mainland-the Seychelles East Africa System (SEAS) cable-received a recent boost when two multilateral financiers agreed to fund the debt component of the US$36m project (March 2011; Economic performance). The African Development Bank in May approved a US$12m low-cost loan for the SEAS, the first to a public-private partnership in Seychelles, following a decision in March by the European Investment Bank (EIB) to provide US$11m for the project. The two loans will be disbursed to the cable's owner, Seychelles Cable Systems (SCS), a joint venture between the government and the archipelago's two telecoms providers, Airtel and Cable & Wireless: the state and the private operators will provide the remaining finance of approximately US$13m in the form of equity. The EIB also sanctioned a US$5.6m grant from the EU-Africa Infrastructure Trust Fund to support the government's shareholding in the project, and the dividend earned from the stake will be used to provide free Internet access for schools, hospitals and libraries. Survey work on the cable, to be laid by a French telecoms infrastructure company, Alcatel, is now under way and start-up is scheduled for mid-2012.

The EIB is also considering funding a US$14m project to improve water supply and sanitation on the islands of Mahé, Praslin and La Digue. Recent data show that supply of treated water edged up by just 0.7% to 10.9m litres in 2010, much slower than the rate of both GDP and population growth, highlighting a potential constraint on economic development. Seychelles also secured a US$37m grant package from the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development in April, including US$28m for an 8-mw wind-power plant (to be built by a UAE firm, Masdar, at a site still to be determined) and US$9m for a housing project. The UAE also handed over a new diagnostic unit at the main hospital in April, worth about US$10m, and is funding a new base for the Seychelles coastguard worth about US$15m. China, meanwhile, gave a grant of US$8m in March for house- and school-building, promised to supply two aircraft for anti-piracy patrols and opened a new 50-bed hospital at Anse Royale, built and funded at a cost of about US$3.5m.