PORT VILA (Pacnews) — Pacific island countries need a consultative mechanism in place to prepare them for any future negotiations for funding assistance with international trading bodies, an expert says.
Diane Zachary, a specialist in setting up business organizations, told Pacnews that from her experiences in the Pacific, most of the countries are moving in the “right direction.”
Zachary is attending the Forum Economic Ministers Meeting here in Port Vila, Vanuatu to brief regional ministers on what are the best practices for private and public sector partnerships.
“Pacific island countries need to start to prepare themselves for the negotiations with the European Union under the Cotonou Agreement. We hope that this is a starting process that will lead to regional mechanism to enable consultation at a regional level,” she said.
“For now, Pacific island countries need to start at the national level. They need to form strong business associations in their countries before they can move further and work together on a regional level,” Zachary said.
She said that in small Pacific island countries there’s a need for capacity building to ensure that the private sector is able to contribute effectively to their economy. “In Samoa, they have jointly developed policies that would attract investment and create a stable business environment for local businesses. But there is still a lot to be done,” she said.
Zachary said in Samoa the partnership is working well.
“They have started to work together to create some of these policies and this has resulted in good economic growth. That is the benefit to this consultation,” she said.
“We may have to work hard at this partnership to satisfy both the private sector and government, but the bottom line is that there should be revenue at the end of the process. That is revenue for government and more opportunities for businesses to expand, more employment opportunities and enough money for people to spend,” she added.
The Hawaiian business consultant, however, sounded an appeal for Pacific island countries to include women and indigenous business organizations in their national associations.
“This gives their national associations some balance in their representation of the kinds of business environment in their countries,” Zachary said.
