Below is the second part of an interview conducted by PACNEWS Editor, Makereta Komai with the new director general of the ADB Pacific Department Emma Veve on the sidelines of the 58th ADB Governor’s Annual Meeting in Milan, Italy. Part One, titled: Building Resilience, was published in The Fiji Times, Tuesday May 13, 2025.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is Fiji’s biggest multilateral lender and works closely with its 14 Pacific developing member countries (PDMC), including Fiji, to help build resilience against economic shocks, deliver sustainable services and promote inclusive and sustainable growth.
Ms Veve took office in February this year and is tasked with the delivery of ADB’s vision and strategy in the Pacific.
PACNEWS: The issue of correspondent banking relationship – one of the emerging concerns from your Pacific Developing Member Countries (PDMC). How has the ADB addressed this concern since the last meeting in Georgia?
Emma Veve: After the meeting in Tbilisi, there was a big meeting in Brisbane around finance in the Pacific. And we came to an agreement that the World Bank would have a really strong focus on developing the system where countries that didn’t have access to banking could still operate a banking system with the support of the World Bank.
And we agreed that we would come in behind that with a lot of technical assistance, capacity building and work with local banks and governments to try to build skills needed.
One of the biggest concerns for correspondent banking is accurately identifying the customers, because you get into money laundering issues. Some Pacific countries are not World Bank members and don’t have access to World Bank grant financing. So, ADB and the government in Japan are helping as well — helping to finance what’s needed to be done in those countries.
We’ve seen Westpac attempt pull back from Fiji, for example. The islands are vulnerable, particularly if there’s not homegrown banks.
And really BSP is the only homegrown, it’s a Papua New Guinean bank servicing many Pacific countries now.
PACNEWS: At this meeting here in Milan, one of the four core priorities of the ADB, part of this discussion here is on food security to drive transformative change in all the member countries of the Asian Development Bank.
The allocation towards that priority has increased, and it will be $US26billion ($F591b) for the next three years. For the Pacific, given that this is a big agenda for ADB, how will that translate into the work that you’re going to do in the Pacific, in that area?
Emma Veve: Great question. You know, a few years ago, we had no agriculture sector people working with us in the Pacific. With the recent internal restructuring, we’re now able to pull in our agricultural natural resource people to work in the Pacific.
They’re very interested in building up business, and there’s a lot of interest in supporting the agriculture sector in the Pacific – both through engagement with growers, and how can we help growers be more efficient, what digital technologies are available to help farmers and markets communicate.
But also, the value chain of agricultural produce. So how can you get it from a remote highland down to a market, or from that market to a port overseas, and what cold storage etc. is needed along the way.
So, all of the supply chains, and how to add value to the products along the way, I think are areas that the Pacific can really benefit from.
And then you become more able to substitute local agricultural products for imports, and that of course does build your resilience and your food security.
PACNEWS: What do you mean benefit from? Would that mean Pacific Developing Member Countries benefit from accessing funds that are available?
Emma Veve: I think it’s messaging countries that this is an issue that is of concern, particularly with inflationary pressures around the world. Importing food is a lot more expensive, you need to make sure that you’re producing food in country efficiently, so it’s more affordable for the local population to buy.
So, it’s messaging the countries that we’re here, we’re working in that area, and we want to do more. And it sort of starts conversations on what can we do.
PACNEWS: Are PDMCs prioritising food security?
Emma Veve: They’re probably not talking about it as food security, but some countries are certainly talking about logistics chains and how to connect farmers and markets.
And countries are talking about replacing food imports, and how better to supply the hotel industry in country. The private sector is also potentially important in that.
In a larger country if you’re looking at agricultural collection and processing points, they are often run by the private sector. We’ve got a number of investments across the Pacific, I’m thinking of PNG (Papua New Guinea) in terms of cocoa products, where we’re helping to finance that.
So, it can be a mix of public and private, or a government owned facility that they bring in the private sector to operate and manage.
PACNEWS: This is a question on the local currency bond financing. I went to one of the sessions and it was announced that Fiji and Tonga have become the first Pacific countries that have given their approval to the ADB. So, what does this mean?
Emma Veve: We’ve been hearing this from the private sector, when we try to talk to them about borrowing from us is that we usually lend in US dollars or a couple of other big international currencies.
But if someone wants to borrow in Fiji dollars or the Tongan Pa’anga, we weren’t able to help that. And that moves the foreign exchange risks, if we could, from the borrower to us.
And we’re much better equipped to balance all those foreign exchange risks. We’re dealing in large amounts of money and lots of currencies. What our treasury has done is reach out to the Pacific countries who have their own currencies and say, are you interested in us being able to place a bond in your finance market? Like your Ministry for Finance do when they want to finance their budget.
They’ll put a bond out, local banks, maybe the super fund will buy that bond. And then with the local currency, usually the government, but in this case ADB, would have that local currency that we could then lend to the private sector.
What we are trying to do is, with Tonga and Fiji, we’re now going through a process of all of the legal, legislative, parliamentary requirements to allow us to put a bond into your finance market.
PACNEWS: Those approvals from Fiji and Tonga have now come to ADB.
Emma Veve: Yes, so Fiji and Tonga said yes, we want to kickstart this process in the Fijian dollar and the Pa’anga. We will now go through a process, it might require parliamentary approvals and legal writing, but what we want to do is to get that ready so that we can do it.
At the same time our teams will be out talking to the private sector, knowing this is coming up and knowing we can now offer them loans in their own currency. And so, when we gather up enough of those loans, we’ll put out a bond, the amount of money we need, and then be able to make the loans.
PACNEWS: So that means the ADB will then go out and raise local currency bond that will be available for the private sector?
Emma Veve: Yes, because with governments, we can already do local currency loans to governments. In places like the Cook Islands with the New Zealand dollar, we’ve been doing that for quite some years. But when it comes to the private sector, we have to have a bond to raise the currency.
PACNEWS: Is this maybe an initiative that other Pacific countries with their own currency can take on to be able to finance the private sector?
Emma Veve: Yes, we’ve asked all of them. Vanuatu, Samoa and Solomon Islands are very interested and sort of agreed to go forward fairly soon. I think Vanuatu is dealing with the aftershocks of the earthquake and what have you, so a bit further down the track. And Fiji and Tonga are the first ones to go.
Attached is the link to the first part of the interview: Building resilience – The Fiji Times