A smorgasbord of opportunity facing Fiji

Transcript

Fiji's Minister of Finance Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says the past year of democratic government has brought Fiji more economic opportunities and the trick now is to be clever about taking them up.

It's almost a year since the Bainimarama regime won a landslide victory at the polls after seizing power eight years earlier in a military coup.

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum says the return to parliamentary democracy has meant the return of traditional partners and increased confidence from local and overseas investors.

AIYAZ SAIYED-KHAIYUM: A lot of countries are a lot more engaged now with Fiji. A number of multilateral partners are now engaged with Fiji. So that obviously increases our opportunities and I think the trick now is to take advantage of those opportunities and be clever about it. You have a lot of multilateral agencies coming along and wanting to offer you money. But you don't want to take it all. You need to be very prudent about it. You need to clever about how to sort of stagger that expenditure. We have, I think what is really important for us is that we've, as you would know, launched this national development plan. We've had close to seven hundred meetings about it through Fiji and we're drafting a five-year and twenty-year development plan. That plan is donewith a sort of very apolitical approach in terms of what are the development requirements in different areas of Fiji and indeed some of the challenges as a country. So how do we mitigate some of those risks and how do we plan for it? For example, if there's going to be an older population in a few years time, in terms of health services, what are the areas we need ot expand. At the moment obviously, we're quite heavy at the bottom in terms of the younger population. So I think that's a very exciting exercise. And if we do get the plan out hopefully by the end of the first quarter of next year, then it helps also our development partners, the multilateral agencies to know where we're going as a country. The fundamental issue with Fiji has always been, you know with all the political disruptions we've had, it's fundamentally a socio-economic issue. It has been given the facade of many other... and perhaps in Fiji's case a sort of communal face to it. But it has been fundamentally an issue about socio-economic access, socio-economic empowerment. And that's what we have been trying to do in terms of infrastructure development...

SALLY ROUND: So that thirty percent or thereabouts of poverty, is this what the national development plan is trying to address?

AS: Amongst other things too. The development plan is also about staging yourself for the future; knowing where your priorities are, where your weaknesses are, and how do you best address them.

SR: And where do you see those strengths?

AS: I think Fiji's is obviously the human capital that we have. And this is why for example we made education free. We made tertiary education, you know, anybody can go  to university as long as they can get a place, we'll pay for that. And you pay us back once you start working. Because Fiji in fact, post the coup in 1987, as they say in Fiji, we exported so many good people to Australia and New Zealand. And obviously those two countries have benefitted, west coast of North America. So we need to build the human resources and we think that one of the advantages Fiji has is human capital. We have a very well educated workforce, English-speaking workforce. We are well placed geographically in the Pacific, we can provide a lot of services.

SR: So that's where you want to go, things like call centres?

AS: We already have call centres. Yes, to build upon that. Back office processing, for example ANZ has moved its regional head office from Melbourne to Suva. They have something like 425 people doing backend processing. Fiji's position is: given the image that Fiji conjures up when you mention Fiji in terms of pristine environment, green environment, so we have launched, as you will know, in the past year or so, the green growth framework which the prime minister launched. We have a trade policy framework. So the idea is to, even if you get into the garment industry - as we are in the garment industry space - we don't produce large volume garments now. We produce low volume, high quality garments. So you are environmentally friendly; you have compliance with labour standards; you have a green growth framework. So that's what positions you. Similarly with tourism. Many good beaches in many other countries, but how do we distinguish ourselves, and that's what we are focussed on.