The Government is confident in the ability of home grown businesses and wishes to see more prospects in terms of local investments.

This was reiterated by the Minister for Industry, Trade and Tourism, Faiyaz Koya during the official launch of a new tourist tour and transport company in Martintar in Nadi on Saturday.

“There is a buzz in the air-sense of optimism, confidence, demand for services, new investment, creation of new jobs and off the expectation will continue as the Government continues to deliver,” Mr Koya said.

He also said: “The Government also regards the private sector as a vital partner in national development and the provision of better living standards for all Fijians.”

“We have great confidence in the ability of such home grown businesses to prosper even more.”

AAAK Group of Companies has now expanded its transport services into the tourism industry adding three new coaches to its fleet.

Noticing the demand for more transport services in the country, the Group’s managing director, Azeem Khan said they invested in the sector.

“We have been very strong in providing the local taxi/ transport services through Taxi 2000 (founded by Mr Khan’s father, Aslam Khan), therefore we made this investment especially noticing the demand,” Mr Khan said.

He thanked the Government for the confidence in the local investors.

The Local Fiji Tours and Transfers has already had negotiations with travel agencies in Australia and New Zealand and has been successful marketing its services.

The company has launched its active website and is working with Digicel Fiji to provide added services to the tourists booking their services.

“We have a Digicel sim card which will be pre-registered once the tourists book the services and through this they will get certain amount of credit and data free to begin with,” Mr Khan said.

“We have currently tour agencies we are working with, one is Hideaway Holiday in Australia and Hot Fiji.deals based out of NZ and at the moment we are talking to  few agencies in Australia and New Zeland who will be providing services.”

Mr Koya lauded the initiatives of the company given the advancements and technologies involved in provision of the company services.

Edited by: Kathrin Krishna