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Seychelles Transportation and Telecommunications
Cars and buses are the principal means of
transportation;
Seychelles has no railroads. The total road network as of
1994
was 302 kilometers, of which 202 kilometers are hard
surfaced.
Road conditions on the island of Mahé are for the most
part
excellent. Vehicle registrations consist of 4,072 private
cars,
216 buses, 1,105 commercial vehicles, and 102 motorcycles.
Between 1983 and 1986, car imports were prohibited to
conserve
foreign exchange. Under a quota system subsequently
introduced,
vehicle imports were allowed to rise to 1,070 in 1989.
Mahé has an international airport and a good harbor. A
government ferry service links Mahé to the nearby islands
of
Praslin and La Digue. Private vessels serve some smaller
islands,
but in the more remote islands service is less frequent
and is
primarily for loading copra and delivering supplies. In
April
1994, Seychelles Shipping Line was founded to provide
additional
international service.
Seychelles has fourteen airports or airstrips, eight
with
hard-surfaced runways. The state airline, Air Seychelles,
was
converted from an interisland to an international carrier
in 1983
to offset the effects of termination of air service by
British
Airways. In 1989 it purchased a Boeing 767, followed in
1993 by a
Boeing 757 on a lease-purchase arrangement. The larger 767
flies
to northern European cities, such as London, Frankfurt,
and
Zurich, and the 757 provides service to Johannesburg,
Nairobi,
Bahrain, Dubayy, Singapore, Rome, Paris and Madrid. The
airline
also has four de Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otters and one
Pilatus
Brîtten-Norman Islander. In addition, five international
carriers
serve the airport on Mahé. Air Seychelles' share of
international
traffic was 35 percent in 1992, which it hoped to expand
to more
than 40 percent.
Seychelles has an air traffic control center covering
some
2.6 million square kilometers between the east coast of
Africa
and the Indian subcontinent. The center opened in June
1991 and
has taken over some of the responsibilities that Somalia
handled;
it serves seventeen international airlines.
Seychelles has good telecommunications links with all
parts
of the world by satellite and telephone service on the
islands of
Mahé, Praslin, and La Digue. Direct radio communications
linked
the outer islands to Mahé and to African coastal
countries. Some
13,000 telephone lines were in use as of 1994, along with
more
than 200 telex and facsimile machines. In 1994 some 40,000
radios
and 13,000 television sets could receive programs of the
government-owned Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation. With
the
help of three relay stations, television signals are
available to
between 75 and 80 percent of the population. The
television
stations carry foreign programming beamed to an Indian
Ocean
International Telecommunications Satellite Corporation
(Intelsat)
earth station. There are two amplitude modulation (AM)
radio
stations, one government and the other a missionary system
licensed to broadcast both local and international
religious
programs.
Data as of August 1994
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