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Fiji’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation and Civil Aviation, Ratu Inoke Kubuabola has highlighted the combined challenges that make shipping services in the Pacific relatively expensive.
Opening the 35th Pacific Countries Ports Association Conference in Suva today, Kubuabola said the most important of these challenges were the long distances between Pacific ports, small populations and widely dispersed communities, “our trade volumes…and the widely varying port facilities with generally inadequate funding for their operation and maintenance”.
He said that because of these challenges, Pacific island countries cannot take full advantage of what is available at larger international ports.
“Port efficiency is therefore a challenge for us in the Pacific and unless we address these issues successfully we will not benefit from the up-tick in economic activity that is forecasted for the future.”
Kubuabola also said the theme of the conference: “Trading in a Global Environment” is very suitable for the meet adding that in a global economy, no nation is self sufficient.
“International trade has grown substantially faster than world income and the share of manufacturing in world trade has increased substantially.”
Brian Riches, President of the Pacific Countries Ports Association, said the conference was important for each Pacific nation because it allowed them to share their different issues and problems and together come up with solutions.
“Working in isolation we have our unique problems and when we come together, we find that all of us have similar issues and in sharing those issues we can find solutions to the problems that we have in our own ports. It’s very important that we can draw on each other for help and ideas”
The conference ends tomorrow night.
Repeka Nasiko.
