Addressing the regional trade ministers meeting, Cook Islands Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Wilkie Rasmussen said a number of countries no longer want to continue with the annual ministerial meeting.
Rasmussen said despite the wishes of “some of us” not to hold the meeting next year, the ministers were there to discuss a number of trade development matters.
Peter Forau, deputy secretary general of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, first made mention of the objections to the meeting in his introduction at the one- day meeting, held in the Edgewater Resort conference room.
“Since 2003 the FTMM has met annually and in recent years the agenda had become monotonous and contained the same issues. This has raised questions about the value of the FTMMs because it is felt the agenda has become unresponsive to emerging needs of forum members.”
He said despite this, it is not the secretariat’s role to pass judgment on the merits of the meeting.
“What we can share though is our view that the priorities of the region on trade have not changed because we are still in the business of implementing the necessary strategies in pursuit of these priorities. In other words, they are still work-in-progress. In some cases, lack of funding requires that those approved priorities which are still on hold must be brought back to ministers to refresh the mandate or for redirections,” said Forau.
He feared this year’s meeting contained a consolidated version of the same agenda as last year.
Forau pointed out that trade development is an important priority in the Pacific Plan.
