Kolitagane:Trade The Engine For Growth

Trade is the engine of growth, especially for a small developing economy like Fiji, says David Kolitagane.

The Permanent Secretary for Agriculture made the remarks when he opened the Exporters Symposium at Tanoa Plaza Hotel, Suva on Tuesday.

Mr Kolitagane said: “Since 2006, Government has identified and focused its efforts in addressing our trade imbalance through numerous reforms and measures and has set targets to increase our exports, reduce our import bills thus reducing our trade deficit.

“This objective continues to be inculcated in our national development plan as a pillar for economic growth.”

Trade is crucial

For Agriculture, trade is crucial for the development of the sector.

“It brings the much needed foreign earnings for reinvestment, creation of more jobs, improving the livelihood and standard of living of our rural communities and the development of our nation as a whole,” Mr Kolitagane said.

“In 2016, our agriculture trade showed a negative result of F$453 million, meaning that agricultural import is more than our exports.

“The value of our export which includes both crops and livestock was F$193 million in which our export was mainly driven by major fresh and chilled commodities such as Taro, Ginger, Cassava, Pawpaw and Kava as well as other value added products such as Coconut Oil.

“In that same year (2016), we imported F$646 million of commodities like rice, potato, dairy, fresh and chilled meat and others of which most are for our hotel industries.

“As directed by the Government, the challenge now for agriculture is to increase our non-sugar export by F$100 million and to reduce imports of fruits and vegetables by F$80 million in 2020.

“Some may say that this is unrealistic, but we believe that everything is possible if we put all our efforts together in finding better ways and solutions to our problems.

“I believe this symposium supports the initiative of providing that platform for dialogue and better understanding of issues relating to agricultural trade especially our exports and to find ways to address those trade or market access issues.

“Fiji already has existing and favourable quarantine arrangements that allows the trade of our agricultural produce with countries such as Australia, NZ, US, Europe, Canada, China and neighbouring Pacific Island countries.

“Over the years, there have been issues raised by importers of Fiji’s fresh agricultural produce in New Zealand, Australia, US and other importing countries that needed to be addressed if our exports are to be increased.”

Taking heed of issues

Mr Kolitagane said some of these salient issues were on quality standards, branding, packaging and grading which they could not compromise.

“As from our exporters, there are a number of issues relating to costs associated with export like costs by Customs Brokers, higher fees and charges by Biosecurity and Nature’s Way, fuel surcharge from Fiji Airways and others,” he said.

“In order for us to maintain and expand our existing export markets, we need to be vigilant and take heed of these issues.

“We need to heighten our efforts in resolving those issues because it is critical to the survival of the agro-export industries.

“From strategic perspective, these anomalies if left un-checked, will result in the decline in confidence of exporters that will unduly result in decline in export performance which will further affect farmers and the agriculture sector as a whole.”

Mr Kolitagane said neglecting its importance would have a negative impact on our image.

Feedback:  maraia.vula@fijisun.com.fj