Day: 23 March 2018

This article is part of an interview with Monaco Open for Business: Serge Pierryves, Director of Monaco’s Business Development Agency (Direction de l’Expansion Economique).

During the first year of a new business activity, Monegasque citizens or their spouses may apply for a grant or a loan to help them finance the setting up of a new business, on condition that the business is their only professional activity, that is, that they have no other paid activity. This aid can be obtained for any business activity for self-employed workers or companies in the sectors of commerce, industry, artisanal, professional and services.

The grant consists of two components and is generally granted for a three-year period.

The first component is a contribution towards the payment of rent for business premises to be used as the head office or main premises. It is paid in the form of a subsidy and is capped on a sliding scale each year (€710 per month in the first year, €510 per month in the second year and €300 per month in the third year).

The second component covers contributions towards social charges for self-employed workers. In other words, the state will cover health and pension payments to the Caisse d’Assurance Maladie des Travailleurs Indépendants (CAMTI) and to the Caisse Autonome des Retraites des Travailleurs Indépendants (CARTI).

See also Financial aid for setting up a business in Monaco: the Pass Startup Programme

See also Monaco open for Business: 4 types of financial support for businesses 

This grant represents more than €5,000 per year for each beneficiary, and an annual budget of around €650,000 for the state.

Beneficiaries can also obtain an installation loan to help them cover any work needed to be carried out on the business premises and to purchase furniture, materials and stock. It can also be used to buy a business or a lease. The loan is capped at €100,000 (and 80 percent of the value of the investment), for a maximum period of ten years.

The loan can be reimbursed in advance, at any time, without penalties being incurred.

READ ORIGINAL INTERVIEW

Monaco Open for Business: Laurence Garino of Monaco Welcome Office

Monaco has its fair share of high-end sushi joints, from Buddha Bar to Moshi Moshi, as well as the Planet Sushi franchise, all of which offer freshly prepared on site variations of the Japanese rice delicacy. And although International Sushi Day isn’t until June 18, I am often asked how healthy is sushi and how often should you eat it?

The answer depends on whom you ask. In a New York Times article titled ‘Is Sushi “Healthy”? What About Granola? Where Americans and Nutritionists Disagree’, published in July 2016, 75 percent of nutritionists think that sushi is healthy compared to only 49 percent of the public when asked the same question. (As an aside, 72 percent of the public versus 32 percent of nutritionists consider coconut oil healthy).

As I tell my clients, for me there’s no one answer.  From my own experience, sushi weighs in somewhere in the middle on the it’s-good-for-you scale. But depending on the ingredients, the food source, and how and where it’s prepared, sushi can be very good, very bad or just a waste of calories.

Fresh cold water fish, such as tuna, salmon and trout, are rich in Omega-3 fatty acids and proteins and that’s good for you, and depending on the type of fish, it may also have varying amounts of vitamins A and D, magnesium and calcium. Also good for you. However, the fish may also contain mercury which is NOT good for you.

Fresh vegetables, often an integral part of sushi, are loaded with healthy vitamins and minerals. Great, but … they may also contain herbicides, pesticides and other “cides” you don’t really want in your system.

Essentially, this means that sushi by name does not equate healthy eating. You need to be careful.

Avoid deep-fried sushi. Let’s be honest, deep-fried anything, with the fat, salt and high temperatures, is unhealthy (even if tastier). Deep-frying vegetables robs them of their beta-carotene and vitamin A, as well as other nutrients.

Skip the sauces. Sauce can mask the true appearance and taste of fish, vegetables or rice, especially when they are of inferior quality.

Take smaller rice portions. Rice is the cheapest ingredient in sushi, so some restaurants use higher proportions. Sushi rice tastes different than ordinary rice because of the added vinegar, salt and sugar.  Depending on the origin of the rice, it may contain high quantities of arsenic.

Investigate the ingredients. The quality of the ingredients is crucial. Don’t be afraid to ask the chef how much salt, vinegar and sugar is used. Ask about the origin of the fish and whether it is organic, ditto for the vegetables.

Choose your fish wisely. Mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and other harmful chemicals can be found in some fish species.  The “5 S” (salmon, shrimp, scallops, squid and sardines), as well as oysters and tilapia, are likely to have the lowest amounts of mercury while king mackerel, swordfish, Chilean sea bass, bluefish, halibut, Spanish mackerel (Gulf) and canned albacore tuna usually contain the highest levels.

Also note that fish farmers frequently add chemicals to make the fish larger and more attractive, so you may want to inquire whether the fish is farm-raised or wild. Pink dye, is almost always added to farmed salmon feeding, to give it the same colour as wild salmon because consumers shy away from buying white salmon.

The clean and fresh test. Even the most nutrient-rich food can give you food poisoning if the kitchen is filthy or the ingredients are not fresh. With fish this is even more important because sushi tends to be uncooked, which raises the risk that infectious pathogens (such as Hepatitis A and Vibrio vulnificus) remain in the food. Once again, if there’s too much sauce, ask yourself what is it hiding underneath. When it comes to sashimi the rules are pretty much the same. Use your common sense.

The bottom line is that nutrition is complex, and you should be asking yourself what makes certain foods healthy or unhealthy and under which circumstances. My preference is to avoid sushi from large commercial chains and supermarkets (although Carrefour in Monaco prepares the sushi fresh in the store), in favour of eating sushi when I know how and where it is prepared.

Udi Gon-Paz is a Clinical Nutritionist licensed in Monaco and specialising in stress management for holistic wellbeing. Article first published March 15, 2018.

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