GOVERNMENT’S trade and investment marketing arm Investment Fiji is chasing a number of new projects targeted for implementation in the country.
“We’ve got in initial stages a lot more leads that we think will convert into something on the ground next year,” Investment Fiji chief executive officer Kamal Chetty said in an interview.
Mr Chetty said those new projects were in manufacturing, green energy, aquaculture and some in tourism.
He said part of their global strategy during trade missions was to target investors from around the world.
“So we have a number of events that are coming up where we’ll take Fijian businesses to get them connected and also try to get some investors.
“Our aim when we go globally is to go and meet these investors and see if we can influence them to come to Fiji.”
Mr Chetty said Fiji remained attractive to foreign investors.
He said globally, there was a lot of competition on investment and during trade missions, their team would meet investors that were most likely to come to this part of the world.
“Our role is to see we get the right partners that haver the vision to do something in the Pacific, and they do projects that suits our size.”
Mr Chetty said there were challenges around bettering incentives, labour and policy consistency.
“It’s not necessary for us to give a lot of incentives but it’s very targeted incentives we can give to investors.”
“The big challenge is also there around labour – how can we make the process around access to labour, education and training our people to get into the system. That’s an area that can be looked at.
“And then there is the consistency in policy. We ensure our country remains competitive in the global environment with any policy that comes in.”
Investment Fiji has a pipeline of 212 investment projects worth $6.2 billion, covering the tourism, manufacturing, services, real estate and other sectors.
