Plans to host the Asian Development Bank meetings are underway.

This was revealed by Attorney – General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum in Parliament earlier this week.

He said the move was welcomed in the recent International Monetary Fund/World Bank meetings.

“We want to break into what they call the MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions, Exhibition) market which Fiji has never really done in a large scale.

“We want to be able to bid for the Asian Development Bank meeting; which was held every two years, the large ones they have about 3000 to 4000 people who come to the meeting,” he said.

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said talks are currently underway with developers in Momi Bay.

“To see they can build a convention centre of that size for us to be able to host those types of events, so we can bid for those kinds of events.

“But you need the airline connectivity; if you have an African who is going to come to an ABD meeting or someone from the Middle East or Central Asia, they do not go around the world to come to Fiji; we want their airline connectivity,” he said.

Mr Sayed – Khaiyum said they are using their relationship with Fiji Airways to go to the international arena and market Fiji with them.

“We are working on a partnership with Fiji Airways to build their capacity because we need that capacity.

“We need to break into the Indian tourism market because they will be the single largest outbound market in a few years time; need to go into the Middle East market we obviously need to break into the Business class sector and there is pool of people in the South East Asian market,” he said.

Edited by Maraia Vula

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