Fiji seeks to promote trade with Indonesia

JAKARTA (JP): Fiji Deputy Prime Minister Ratu Timoci Visikula, here for a three-day semi-official visit, is seeking ways to promote trade and cooperation with Indonesia.

Visikula said that cooperation with Indonesia will particularly focus on research projects in the fields of agriculture and forestry, which will include exchanges of human resources in those fields for short-term periods.

"But we also hope to increase economic ties between the two countries through trade and joint ventures, since we have a lot to offer," Visikula said during a visit to the headquarters of the Asian and Pacific Coconut Community (APCC) in Jakarta.

Although trade between Indonesia and Fiji is at present "very small", he said, Indonesian investors can expect to gain much from investment in Fiji.

He pointed out that foreign investors can benefit from Fiji's close ties with Australia and the United States and the preferential treatment it gains from those two countries.

Fiji is presently promoting its tourism sector, but has already developed garment, agricultural and processing industries, he said. Its major export commodities are agricultural products.

Visikula, who arrived here on Wednesday after visiting Taiwan and Malaysia, is scheduled to return to Fiji today.

He met with Coordinating Minister for Production and Distribution Hartarto yesterday, and is scheduled to meet with Minister of Forestry Djamaludin Suryohadikusumo today.

Visikula, who is also Fiji's minister of agriculture, said the purpose of his visit to the headquarters of the Asian and Pacific Coconut Community was to seek the organization's assistance in appointing a resource person for the establishment of a coconut authority in Fiji.

Fiji is one of the 14 members of the APCC.

The coconut authority, Visikula said, is expected to help revive Fiji's coconut market, which entered a slump three or four years ago due to unfavorable prices and periods of bad weather. Up to 20 percent of Fiji's population of almost 800,000 people depend on coconut-based industries.

The APCC is an intergovernmental organization established in 1969 to promote, coordinate and harmonize activities in the coconut industry.

Apart from Fiji, the APCC also groups the Federated States of Micronesia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vanuatu, Vietnam, Western Samoa and Palau.

Of the world's estimated 10.7 million hectares of coconut- harvested land, 9.93 million are found in APCC-member countries.

These countries account for between 85 percent and 90 percent of the world's coconut production. In terms of exports, they supply almost 100 percent of the world's coconut demand, worth up to US$1 billion a year. (pwn)