The government has to re-examine its present labour wage rate for Fiji to compete with countries from the South-East Asia region for investment, said the Minister for Trade and Commerce, Berenado Vunibobo, in 1990.
According to an article published by this newspaper on March 19, the same year Mr Vunibobo said Fiji must continue to spend money in selling itself to overseas investors.
The minister spoke at a press conference after a trade promotion mission to Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
“At the moment, Indonesia is very difficult to compete with, as far as wage rates go, while we stand a better chance with Singapore,” Mr Vunibobo said.
He said the government should examine the present system to see if better productivity could be encouraged.
However, he felt Fiji could hold itself “pretty well” against the four Asian nations.
“There is still room for improvement in the internal machinery to speed up the processing of investment applications.”
The mission was organised by the Fiji Trade and Investment Board and was led by Mr Vunibobo, accompanied by the board’s director, Surendra Sharma, FTIB officials and businessmen.
On their visit to Hong Kong, Mr Vunibobo described the response to their seminar as “overwhelming”, with more than 400 participants.
“We are not in the business of selling or exporting our passports,” the minister said, replying to a question about whether the government would grant Hong Kong citizens Fiji passports.
“We told them that”.
He said Fiji’s reputation had not been touched by the furore over Tonga’s decision to “sell” Tongan passports to Chinese citizens.
Mr Vunibobo said the people from the British colony were looking to business migration before China assumed sovereignty of the country in 1997.
“There were missions from all over the world in Hong Kong courting the residents. At our seminar, there was a sprinkling of young professionals — engineers, lawyers and doctors in the audience.
The minister said residents in the colony were mainly interested in leather goods, hotel and property development, and garments.
In Malaysia, Mr Vunibobo suggested that Fiji should reduce the imbalance in trade, which currently favours Fiji heavily.
Interest in that country was in the concrete, timber, textiles, and pharmaceutical sectors.
Twenty business representatives from local firms participated in the missions.
