Update: 6:20PM THE Pacific Islands Development Forum’s first high level Pacific blue economy conference will be held in early 2017.

This was confirmed at the close of last week’s Pacific Islands Development Forum leaders’ summit in Honiara, Solomon Islands.

The high level conference is expected to bring together civil society, the private sector and governments to focus on the latest knowledge, lessons learned, best practices and private-public partnerships to inform policies, sustainable management and conservation of ocean resources for the people of the Pacific Islands. 

The conference will provide the Pacific region the platform for regional preparatory meeting for the UN conference on oceans and seas to be held in Fiji in June 2017.