Twenty-two university graduates have started an intensive crash course in how to run a business as this year’s Graduate Business Start-Up Grant Scheme kicks off in Suva.
The scheme, now into its second year, is an initiative between the private sector-led Fiji Commerce and Employers Federation (FCEF) and the Tertiary Scholarship and Loan Service (TSLS), Government’s education scholarship arm.
This year, the University of New South Wales (UNSW) joins the scheme as a new international partner.
“Today we launch the second cohort of the Graduate Business Start Up Grant Scheme,” FCEF president Eldon Eastgate said at the launch of the 2026 Graduate Business Start-Up Grant Scheme on Monday.
“In the next 6 months, graduate business start-up grant scheme will provide aspiring entrepreneurs with various business development services such as: market research, business training and advisory services, business coaching and mentoring, drafting, testing and finalising of business plans, entrepreneurship attachment with allowance, start-up grant $5000 and linkages to funding opportunities and the opportunity to start and operate a business.
“This year, we have an additional partner, the University of New South Wales and the number one education sector business incubator program in Australia.
“Top performing incubates will have the opportunity to receive further support from the university’s Founders & Global Innovation Foundry program.
“The program will also link up with other programs such as the Innovation Hub Fiji, FINTECH Innovation hub of the Reserve Bank of Fiji, MSME Fiji under the Ministry of Commerce and Business Development, etc, allowing our graduates to leverage technical assistance, funding and networks,” Mr Eastgate said.
He said FCEF, through its Fiji Enterprise Engine (FEE) – Fiji’s only business incubator and accelerator operated by the private sector – will use business intelligence from its membership to support the aspiring entrepreneurs.
“The graduate business start-up grant scheme is also an example of Public Private Partnership that supports youth employment, entrepreneurship development, private sector expansion and economic resilience.
“Ultimately, this will contribute to the Government’s national development plan to achieve the targeted MSME contributing to 40 per cent of GDP from the current 18 per cent. This is the Ivy league of business induction,” Mr Eastgate said.
TSLS chairwoman Ro Teimumu Kepa said the grant scheme is not just financial assistance.
“It is structured support, it is mentorship, it is accountability, it is governance,” she said.
“The broader impact of this program is significant. It strengthens Fiji’s innovation ecosystem, it promotes small and medium enterprise development, it encourages self-reliance and economic diversification.
“It reinforces the tangible link between education and economic outcomes.”
Business ideas proposed by the graduates were kept under wraps to protect intellectual property. They generally ranged from agriculture to services to food businesses.
