Cover Report
Battling it out...President Ratu Epeli Nailatikau leads the Fiji team against PNG in a golfing competition at Pacific Harbour in Fiji.
able to provide the opportunities we need for employment, especially for the young ones that are coming through college and university,” said Pollard, whose company’s database of jobless in Solomon Islands had reached 1400 by last month. “If PNG wants to take our experienced workers, it could in the short-term create some gaps for us here, but I know what PNG was doing earlier on...they were taking up graduates and providing them with experience, which was a very good move. “If PNG opens its doors to experienced ones, it will simply push up the price for experienced workers here in the Solomon Islands and may make it a bit more expensive for businesses to find workers. But at the end of the day, there are more opportunities and I guess the more opportunities there are, the better,” Pollard said. PNG Push So if what’s uttered by PNG’s Prime Minister Peter O’Neill are anything to go by, PNG has already embarked on an unprecedented onslaught to really drive regional integration, where goods and people move freely and PNG can share its wealth and help lift living standards first among MSG member countries and in time, the rest of the Pacific. “Our view is we’re trying to have a free movement and engagement of people in terms of working and doing business in the Pacific. As a population, we’re nearing 10 million across the Pacific and I think we can look after ourselves if we work together,” O’Neill told Islands Business in an exclusive interview in Fiji last month. He led a delegation of over 100 businesspeople and their families on an investment promotion tour where he called on Fiji’s Prime Minister, Voreqe Bainimarama, as well as visited Fiji-based PNG investments, among them BSP (Bank of South Pacific), Grand Pa18 Islands Business, November 2012
cific Hotel (GPH) and the Deuba-based Pearl South Pacific Resort and Spa. “We believe strongly that PNG, with a population now of seven million people, need to engage more with the rest of the Pacific. I know that we talk to our development partners and everyone around the world to work with us but we know our Pacific better than anyone else and by working together, we can resolve issues like climate change, food security, education, health, potential investment across the Pacific,” said O’Neill, a former accountant and businessman who once led PNG’s Opposition and served as treasurer under the leadership of Sir Michael Somare. On the ground, dollar spinoffs from this mining capital have started to filter into its Pacific neighbours through investment vehicles like the state-owned Mineral Resources Development Company (MRDC), National Superannuation Fund (NASFUND), financial institutions like BSP, Credit Corporation, and private firms like Lamana Development Ltd. Already, these companies have moved capital into MSG countries. Credit Corporation, for instance, with its vision to “be the South Pacific’s leading financial institution, assisting in developing the aspirations of all Pacific Islands nations”, is present in Vanuatu, Fiji and Solomon Islands and its home base in PNG. “Green bank” BSP, listed on the Port Moresby Stock Exchange, is said to be eyeing Vanuatu after opening branches in Solomon Islands, Fiji, Niue and an unsuccessful attempt to buy into National Bank of Samoa last year, although that does not stop it from growing organically there. It has among its top 20 shareholders the PNG Government through the Independent Public Business Corporation, a host of local trusts and pension funds and the International Finance Corporation.