Fiji leads pack in intra-regional exports

Transcript

A new trade report has found the most important export market for Fiji is now its neighbours.
 
Last week the Pacific Community launched the Pacific Islands Trade Report 2010-2014, which gives a rare insight into the flow of goods between Pacific Island countries themselves and the rest of the world.

In 2014, the total value of primary sector exports from the Pacific amounted to US$3.97 billion of which Papua New Guinea earned $2.2 billion.

But report author Sally-Ann Hughes told Bridget Tunnicliffe that Fiji is the only nation that exports in significant quantities to other Pacific countries, accounting for 96 percent of all intra-regional exports.

SALLY-ANN HUGHES: Fiji is actually ahead of Papua New Guinea when it comes to trading with the other Pacific Island nations. Fiji I guess because of its size and because it's slightly more developed than the other countries and it's positioned right in the middle is actually exporting to a lot of the other countries just around it. And talking to the recently appointed trade commissioner to Papua New Guinea, he was telling me that it's just happened in the last three or four years, that the most important export market for Fiji is now all of its neighbours, accounting for more than 30 percent of their exports. That was quite a significant thing to find out, I guess Fiji already knew it but the rest of us didn't.

BRIDGET TUNNICLIFFE: What are the kind of products within the Pacific region's primary sector that are showing good potential?

SAH: Basically the top five are fish and that's mostly tuna which is probably no surprise to anybody. I think 10 of the 15 countries have fish in their top exports. Wood is the second one and that's predominantly I think Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, but Fiji also exports quite a bit of wood. Then there are the fats and oils so that's virgin coconut oil and palm oil. Root crops is also another one that's right up there and a lot of the root crops go to New Zealand of course, and mostly to the Pacific Islanders living in New Zealand.

BT: Did it touch on imports and how that compares to the export balance?

SAH: Yes, and that's a bit of a sad story actually, so it looks equally at primary sector imports and exports and there is a lot of dependency still on imported food and the opportunity here is for each of these countries to look at what they're importing and try and substitute it with local products.

BT: What type of food are Pacific Island countries importing?

SAH: A lot of beverages are being imported so you know this is basically fizzy drinks, and alcohol and beer and stuff.

BT: So the things that are bad for you basically?

SAH: Yeah, there's a lot of baked goods, a lot of cereals, sugar even, you know and and sugar really could all be sourced from Fiji but some of it's coming from far afield so that's another opportunity. You can turn it into an opportunity saying 'well look you could actually get a lot of this stuff just on your backdoor'.