Aussie News - Issue 24 - March 2007

Madagascar

Ambassador Ian McConville with
President of Madagascar
Marc Ravalomanana

A number of interesting developments took place in the bilateral relationship with Madagascar in the first quarter of this year. We inaugurated several of our DAP projects during the Ambassador’s program of farewell calls from 29 January to 2 February. The Ambassador also paid farewell calls on the President of Madagascar, Marc Ravalomanana, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marcel Ranjeva, the Minister for Health and the Minister for Mining as well as diplomatic colleagues. It was also a chance for Ian and Libby to say farewell and thank our hardworking consular wardens, Helen Crawley, Jules Leclezio and Geoff Gorrie, all based in Antananarivo. On the final morning of the visit, we were honoured to have the President inaugurate PMS Constructions (Power and Management Systems Sarl) model construction buildings at the Presidential palace at Lavoloha. This project, initiated by Geoff Gorrie, draws on Australian pre-fabricated housing technology and is already allowing remote communities to construct safe, sturdy dwellings that can withstand cyclonic events.  

Madagascar Mining

With Australia’s mining interests increasing in strength since the go-ahead of the Riotinto ilmenite project in Fort Dauphin and the continuing progress achieved by Madagascar Resources with its Toliara sands project (now at banked feasibility stage), we invited the Minister for Mining, the Hon Olivier Andriamahefaparany, to attend the Australian pavilion at the International Mining Indaba Conference in Cape Town. The pavilion, which involved much hard work from our Pretoria colleagues at the Australian High Commission and included attendance by all the Australian Ambassadors based in Africa, involved attracting the sponsorship of around 20 Australian companies and was an impressive salute to Australian Government support of growing Australian mining activities in Africa which is now worth around AUD 15 billion in investment. Through a range of our public diplomacy activities during that week, we were able to showcase Australian mining interests and technology in Africa, and to underline the strong commercial interests developing between the two continents.