ABOUT 600 people will be employed in the construction of the Vatu Talei Resort at the end of this year, says Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade Manoa Kamikamica.
The $230million hotel investment project by Fiji Airways and BSP-Life-owned Richmond Ltd will open towards the end of 2026.
While officiating at the FNU Conference on Resetting TVET and Higher Education at the Sofitel Resort and Spa in Nadi last week, Mr Kamikamica said he was optimistic about the growth of the Fijian economy with major hotel developments taking place.
“I just thought to share with you some thinking around where Government is at in terms of the economy,” he said.
“And I’ll start by just sharing a bit of where I see personally the economy is heading right now.
“As you may have heard, economic projections suggest that this year, the economy will probably be growing at around 3.4 per cent or even more.
“That is welcoming news, given that our national average is around 2 to 3 per cent.
“We are actually sort of aspiring to a bit more around 5 per cent and hopefully as we start building the blocks and building up more TVET supply, these things will come to the fore.
“The reason why I say that I’m optimistic about 5 per cent is because if you look around there is one major hotel construction going on.
“At the end of this year, I was talking to the project manager that they will have 600 employees on site here.
“So just imagine the number of jobs it creates for our people for about 18 months.
“The economy this year, I’m hoping to see at least two major, or three major hotels break ground.”
