ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the Mauritius–Africa offshore relationship, through which Mauritius is attempting to repeat its earlier success with India in this new frontier for global growth. These attempts have gained more urgency following India’s sharp policy break with accommodating offshore finance, but they must also contend with new challenges. Increasingly, there are tensions in many emerging and developing markets between the perceived benefits of continuing to accommodate offshore capital, and the unprecedented global, regional, and national pressures to resist it. Although the space for unhindered offshore capital movements in the global economy has unquestionably shrunk, for now, most African countries continue to tolerate the use of Mauritian and other offshore financial structures rather than following India’s lead and taking decisive remedial steps against such routes. Nonetheless, in what could be viewed as a sign of things to come, some African countries have begun to ask difficult questions about the immense costs of engaging with Mauritius and other offshore financial centers, and a few have even begun to review certain aspects of their relationships with these jurisdictions, leading to renegotiations and terminations of several existing double taxation agreements.
