Trade mission to North America yields $108M in investment potential and $200M invested by Google - Kamikamica

The recent trade mission to North America has generated potential investments worth $108 million which excludes $200 million that will be invested by Google in a data centre.

This has been confirmed by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade, Manoa Kamikamica while delivering his ministerial statement in Parliament.

Kamikamica says a delegation from North America will be coming to Fiji very soon.

The Deputy Prime Minister says this mission has acted as a platform to connect with the diaspora meet current and potential investors, develop networks and strengthen relationships with government agencies and partners of Fiji.

He also says the Canadian opportunity is quite exciting particularly when it has the same demographics and dynamics as the Australian economy and they look forward to further engagements with Canada and the Canadian businesses over the next few months.

While responding to Kamikamica, independent MP Faiyaz Koya says we must realise that we have a huge diaspora that live in that particular portion of the world and pre-1987, it was visa-free to Canada.

He hopes that the Minister has managed to have some discussions with respect to that issue.

Koya says in terms of the rest of North America, the larger number out of the figures comes from the Fiji Water exports and Fiji needs to increase trade as he believes it is the only region where the balance of trade is in Fiji’s favour. He says Fiji is exporting less to that particular region and these kinds of missions are important for us to grow the export sector but at the same time, encouragement also needs to come for local growers to try and pursue those avenues.

Koya adds he will wait to see how many of these projects will come to fruition and he is hopeful that Investment Fiji will facilitate them as quickly as possible because North Americans want things done quickly in terms of approvals and processes.

He also thanked the Minister for a well-led mission where the right amount of people went across.

Ioane Naivalurua’s Group of 9 Opposition Bloc representative, Viliame Naupoto says Fiji mahogany is a commodity that we need to promote more because right now our mahogany usually goes down to America via South America and it is really timber.

He is urging the Deputy Prime Minister, in future trade missions to promote mahogany products, not only the timber but ways in which we can tap into niche markets.

Naupoto also says there is this big problem of brain drain and the way to perhaps arrest this is to turn it into a brain drain gain and attract them back to Fiji through policies and investment in Fiji.