The UN General Assembly in New York has awarded Seychelles another 14,840 square kilometers of an extended continental shelf in its Northern Plateau region in the central Indian Ocean.
It is 92 times the size of the main island of Mahe and follows the current 400,000-square-kilometre area jointly managed with Mauritius and which is larger than Germany.
This area consists of seabed and subsoil about 92 times the size of Mahé including its surrounding reclamations that can be explored for potential natural resources. It was on August 31 this year that Seychelles officially received the confirmation through its permanent mission to the UN in New York that it has been successfully granted the extension to its continental shelf.
If this will be an extension of tourism opportunities for the Seychelles waits to be seen.