Finance Minister Esrom Immanuel and Fiji’s ambassador to the US Ilisoni Vuidreketi are among several Pacific Island Forum leaders and ministers attending the two-day US -Pacific investment summit that officially opened yesterday at the East-West Centre’s Auditorium in Honolulu, Hawai’i.
The meeting – themed ‘The Pacific Agenda: Investment, Security and Shared Prosperity’ and co-hosted by US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and Commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Samuel Paparo – advances the region’s collective economic priorities and strengthening strategic partnerships with the United States of America (USA).
Pacific leaders will be engaging with senior US government officials and private sector executives through roundtable discussions, with the focus of using the strategic platform to unlock new investment opportunities, deepen economic cooperation and strengthen regional resilience.
Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) chair and Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele told delegates that the Pacific region welcomed engagement grounded in transparency, mutual respect and long-term commitment to deliver impactful people-centered development.
“We seek targeted, effective and sustainable partnerships that can drive the advancement of our regional priorities as outlined in the Leaders Policy on Partnerships that underpins our new partnership mechanism as Forum leaders,” Mr Manele said in his official address at the opening of the summit.
“The prosperity of our Pacific region will increasingly depend not only on governments alone, but on the dynamism, innovation and resilience of our investment, security and shared prosperity,” he said.
Ten Pacific islands journalists are also attending the summit as part of the East-West Centre’s fellowship program.
The summit ends today.
