Foreign investment laws being revamped

Fiji’s Foreign Investment Act is being reviewed to make it more up to date and to help deal with non-compliant investors says Attorney General and Minister for Trade and Industry, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.

Speaking at the launch of the Fiji Trade and Investment Bureau’s revamped website, Sayed-Khaiyum said the amendments will make the rules of engagement in Fiji a lot more transparent to be able to give the FTIB easy recourse “should people be found not complying with the various certificates that have been issued”.

“Government overall has a policy to restructure various statutory bodies, various governmental departments to be able to not just liberalise the economy and liberalise the sectors which will introduce private sector participation in areas we have not had private sector participation, but what it also does is it brings about efficiencies,” he added.

“Government has also been working with the landowners, the owners of native title land where there is various incentives that give equity participation to them, for example in the tourism sector there are various tax breaks that you get. So there are all these opportunities, all these changes that are taking place which the FTIB website will be able to cater for and in fact inform the rest of the world.”

“So with the liberalisation for example of the telecommunication sector, with just the introduction of another mobile phone provider you have seen the numerous benefits that have flowed down to the consumers in Fiji. So similarly we believe competition is good but competition that is based on a very sound and transparent regulatory framework.”