Government to Relook at Foreign Investor Tax
The Government is looking at increasing tax for foreign investors from countries like New Zealand, China, Australia and others.
This was the highlight from a briefing held yesterday between the Permanent Secretary for Trade Shaheen Ali and the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for External Trade, Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Manoa Kamikamica.
Mr Kamikamica said tax restructure and reform was part of the People Alliance Party manifesto, and added that there would be a tax review done first before any further amendments.
“It’s important to have a look at the overall taxation system and try to develop a new system that is easily managed and easy to administer.”
MInIstErIAl BrIEfinG
This week, all the ministers are expected to hold their ministerial briefings and would be clear on their policies.
“This includes how to handle the tertiary education loan schemes (TELS), especially the debt portion, we will need some decision on this,” he said.
SMEs assistance
Mr Kamikamica assured small and medium enterprises that assistance handed to them by the previous Government would continue.
He said the party in its proposed budget had allocated an extra $10 million to assist small and medium enterprises.
“The portfolio that I have at the moment is in charge of domestic trade which also includes external exports. Investment Fiji falls under me,” he said.
He said they would be integrating e-commerce in all facets of public and private enterprise with a special attention to support micro, small and medium enterprises as a catalyst of economic growth.
He also said there was no plan by the coalition Government to reduce funding for the small and medium enterprises at this stage.
China relationship
Mr Kamikamica said Fiji would continue trading with China.
However, he said Fiji needed to cast its trade wide.
“We have trade relationships with Australia, New Zealand and Japan. We are looking to expand those. We are certainly serious about looking at opportunities to expand to the economy,” he said.
“We will be targeting domestic trades where we can replace imports. A good example is dairy, if it is managed well it can replace some of the imports coming in.
“Right now, the dairy is going backwards. Back in the past, we used to produce 12 million litres, now it’s down to four million litres.
“We need to understand what is happening very closely there,” he said.
He said the government was looking at ways to expand export on kava as there was a massive opportunity on pharmaceutical kava.
Meanwhile, the newly-elected Fijian Government has begun working on delivering its first 100-daypromises.