Honorable David Parker Minister for Trade and Export Growth
NZ delegation
Mr Chandar-Sen, President of the NZ-Fiji Business Council
Mr Vinay Narsey – President of the Fiji-NZ Business Council
Senior Government Officials
Members of Fiji Private Sector
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
Bula Vinaka, ki-ora and a very good morning to you all,
On behalf of the Fijian Government, I wish to extend a special welcome to you Honourable Minister. We are delighted to host you and your delegation in Suva. You are among friends as long as you choose your words carefully when it comes to rugby.
Honourable Minister we recognise the growing strength of the New Zealand-Fiji relationship. Our partnership is stronger today than ever before, as the Fijian Government is committed to re-engaging and re-defining our bilateral relationship.
Our nations are bound by our strong economic relations and our people-to-people ties. Going forward we can strengthen that relationship to match the friendship that has always existed between our people, private sectors and our two nations.
We feel honoured that New Zealand does strongly support Fiji and our Pacific Island Countries in addressing challenges, that we face – in particular the challenge of Climate Change which our two Prime Ministers have strongly advocated in regional and international fora.
Minister, ladies and gentlemen,
Fiji’s bilateral engagement with New Zealand continues to be enhanced in terms of two-way trade, tourism and investment. The Fijian economy is expanding to a record tenth consecutive year of economic growth. And I have no doubt we will maintain this upward trajectory in the years to come.
Minister, ladies and gentlemen,
I am extremely proud to note that total two-way trade between Fiji and New Zealand in 2018 amounted to over $975.3 million. New Zealand has been one of Fiji’s top 10 export destinations, with merchandise exports to New Zealand valued at $110 million on average, over the past 5 years
New Zealand has been one of Fiji’s top 5 import or supplier markets over the years. In 2018, imports from New Zealand, was valued at $832.7 million. But you can see the balance of trade is in New Zealand’s favour and we would like to increase our exports significantly.
Minister, ladies and gentlemen,
Over the years, one of the main efforts of the Fijian Government has been to enhance efficiency of service delivery, through reforms, including better use of technology.
Just over a year ago, we made history, as we unveiled the “digital FIJI” platform. digitalFIJI is a means of bringing digital revolution to Fiji, to our economy, to businesses and to the lives of all Fijians.
Under digitalFIJI, a number of new e-services were added, which included birth, deaths and marriage registry as well as company registration.
Minister, ladies and gentlemen,
We have also provided a centralised platform for businesses and investors to get information on two key areas of doing business. These are (i) Starting a Business and (ii) Obtaining Construction Permits. We call this platform bizFIJI.
The vision for having this portal, began with a strategy to fast track and improve processes. We simply wanted to create a single window, where information is readily available and businesses are able to access the relevant forms and documentation required in one place.
This initiative will be further developed into an online submission, approvals and payments portal in about a year and half. All these and other initiatives that we will be taking, will surely improve the ‘ease of doing business’ in Fiji.
Minister, ladies and gentlemen,
To maintain the positive growth of investments, the Fijian Government has provided incentives and benefits for investors in various sectors. More information can be obtained from Investment Fiji website. Furthermore, the Fijian Government has embarked on the establishment of Special Economic Zone.
This will be a modern economic zone, and will support infrastructure and utilities for large scale Information and Communications Technology (ICT) operations, warehousing facilities and medium to light manufacturing and services industries.
Minister, ladies and gentlemen,
To transform healthcare, work has commenced on public-private partnership project for the Lautoka and Ba hospitals. This will provide opportunity for investment in aged-care and retirement villages, hence there are very attractive tax incentives in this sector.
The audio-visual sector has shown significant progress and the benefits from the success of this sector is also felt in other sectors, such as tourism. We hope Shortland Street and other production house in New Zealand will take advantage of our lucrative offer.
We are modernising the investment legislation to outline the obligations and protection for investors, that is benchmarked on international best practices. We are redefining the role of agencies, such as, Investment Fiji to focus on investment promotion and after care for investors.
Minister, ladies and gentlemen
Recently, Fiji has extended its support to New Zealand in launching the Agreement on Climate Change, Trade and Sustainability in the margins of 74th United Nations General Assembly in New York.
It is Fiji’s view that bilateral, regional or multilateral trade agreements that are currently under negotiation should be made more climate-friendly. Climate change issues embedded in trade agreements could help meet climate goals.
Minister, ladies and gentlemen,
This breakfast event provides you with an opportunity to meet the Fijian private sector and hear from them on what their interests are. And how we can work together to continue growing trade and economic relationship between the two countries.
Minister, our bilateral partnership is strong and tenacious, one based on mutual confidence and trust. Once again, welcome to Fiji. And I must thank you for briefly meeting me during my visit to Wellington two weeks ago.
Vinaka vakalevu. Thank you.