PRESS STATEMENT
Good afternoon,
Members of the Media.
We have a few major announcements to make, relating to decisions that were made by Cabinet this morning (30.11.10).
SUPERYACHT CHARTER DECREE
First of all, I would like to highlight that Cabinet approved the Superyacht Charter Decree. This is quite an important decision made by Cabinet. Those of you who know about the tourism sector, the superyacht industry is the top end of the tourism sector. It is hardly ever, if ever affected by recessions. Last year during the recession, the top 3 to 4 % of the superyachting sector was not affected at all.
In the Southern Pacific, the superyachts only come up to Tahiti and upto the east coast of Australia. So in between there is no opportunity for superyachts to be cruising; to be chartering in the Southern Pacific waters.
It has been close to over a year that , we have had consultations and not just with the private sector but also with various government agencies like the Department of Immigration, the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Indigenous Affairs, FIRCA, FTIB, Tourism and of course FIMSA.
We have come up with a decree which will allow these superyachts to come and charter in Fiji, to cruise in Fiji. This will be of enormous economic benefit to Fiji. This initiative is also in line with the Prime Minister’s Budget of 2010 in which we have reduced for example the duty on marine vessels, this now helps to assist to create a marine industry in Fiji. Superyachts are big hand spenders and when they come to Fiji, they will actually use our services, buy our food, spend their money here, use local employees. This Decree has enormous support from all sectors.
HARDWARE TRADERS
.Today Cabinet approved for the Minister for Trade and Investment to direct the Commerce Commission to investigate unscrupulous trading practices by manufacturers, suppliers and retailers in the hardware sector. As you know there are about two or three major suppliers of hardware in Fiji and there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that there is collusion, and anti-competitive behaviour. We have also carried out a preliminary study via FIRCA which indicates anti-competitive behaviour, enormous mark-up and collusion.
The Prime Minister in his 2010 Budget said that we need to have economic development. In order to facilitate economic development, we need to ensure that the cost of development, be it you renovating your house , adding a new bedroom, putting up a new fence, painting your house or building a new home for that matter, is affordable.-Government is also giving ten million dollars in a housing scheme that is coming on stream very soon, but in order to do that, in order to make it propositioned, in order to improve our livelihood and of course our living standards, we need to have competitive pricing in the hardware sector.
We have done some very preliminary studies regarding the cost of importation into Fiji and how much those goods are being retailed for. We found some fairly astronomical mark-ups that are taking place. We are not suggesting price control but we are saying is that we do not want suppliers of those sorts of goods or retailers in any sector to engage in anti-competitive behaviour.
This message is essentially going out to various sectors that Government is not going to condone anti-competitive behaviour in particular in sectors that are going to hold us back from development, which is going to deny the ordinary, everyday Fijian from renovating their house, from building a new house. We do not want cost to be exorbitant. We want them to be able to stretch their dollar as far as possible through a very competitive and robust market.
FEA RESTRUCTURE
The third announcement of course is the restructure of the Fiji Electricity Authority (FEA). Some of you of course know that we had expressions of interest called for people to help us with the restructure of FEA. Cabinet today approved the restructure of FEA and that will mean we will be looking at some form of partial privatisation which will include divestment of Government shares which we will need to do to corporatise FEA and for it to be able to list shares perhaps on the stock market. So we are looking at creating a lot more robust capital markets in Fiji but without Government losing control of FEA.
Cabinet approved the divestment of Government Printery to the private sector and that again contributes to the private sector development in Fiji but more so importantly it also needs to groom the economic and financial management within government operations.
MEDIA INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENT DECREE CONSULTATIONS
As you know that we have advertised the dates for the Media Industry Development Decree consultations and those consultations are in today’s Fiji Sun newspaper. It will be held in Suva on 7th of April, in Labasa the 8th of April and in Lautoka the 10th of April. You are supposed to register to be able to participate in the consultations the details of which have been set out in the advertisement.
As decided by the Prime Minister who is also the Minister for Information, in the interest of getting all participation, Fiji Television and Fiji Times can also participate if they wish to and they can put in their expressions of interest and participate in the consultations.
Thank you.