The Fiji Commerce and Employers Federation (FCEF) has appointed Jenny Seeto, a former managing partner at accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, as its second trustee.

Ms Seeto will join current trustee Hafiz Khan on the board of Fiji’s leading private sector employers’ organisation.

Fijian Holdings Limited chief executive officer Nouzab Fareed and Fiji Gas Limited director Harvie Probert were also chosen as new directors of FCEF after a short election.

The appointments came at FCEF’s 58th annual general meeting yesterday in Suva.

Another motion successfully passed at the AGM was the implementation of a subscription and membership fee for the Young Entrepreneurs Council (YEC).

The rationale behind the move is to bring the YEC up to the level of the other councils within the organisation.

The AGM comes as Fiji prepares to hand over its Conference of Parties (COP23) presidency to Poland in December.

During the presidency, FCEF joined the global push to rein in climate change, specifically to help meet the targets set out in 2015’s Paris Agreement.

The effects of climate change present an on-going worry for businesses, particularly in areas of financing and sustainable growth.

FCEF in July hosted the Global Employers Climate Action Forum where it stressed to businesses the importance of going green and building resilience.

“Our core business is to advocate for membership with relevant stakeholders and this past year we took on the climate change aspect of that,” said federation CEO Nesbitt Hazelman.

“We formed the business disaster resilience council after Cyclone Winston and we’ve used that as a conduit to help our businesses get ready for disasters in the future.”

Some senior FCEF members will join Fiji’s delegation at December’s COP24 climate talks in Katowice, Poland.

Federation president Sandeep Chauhan said the FCEF would be sharing its experiences at COP24, as well as how it had planned for our awareness raising activities to progress.

“The amount and type of work that happens in a developing nation will be different from a developed one and it is important for us to work in tandem,” he said.

Edited by Percy Kean

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