Scope for trade
IN 2020, despite the COVID-19 pandemic and global economic slowdown, exports to the United States decreased to $224 million as compared with $246m in 2019.
The United States charge d’affaires to Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga, and Tuvalu Tony Greubel said this was nevertheless still impressive.
“In 2019 US exported $103m worth of goods and services to Fiji,” he said.
“Fiji has a trade surplus with the US, the US imported $246m worth of goods and services from Fiji.”
The embassy convened a virtual conference of more than 50 US-based consulting companies to introduce them to Fiji's burgeoning export sector, as this program was a follow-on from the Fiji Forward series of economic roundtables and workshops organised by the embassy in 2020.
Mr Greubel said they marketed the local products available to the American companies and these also were the niches which were available here in order to expand trade.
“What people often forget is the United States is Fiji’s largest export market and we think there is lot of room to grow and many of the American companies are looking for boutique product to sell in the higher end market and we want to emphasise that Fiji is a great source for that.”
There was interest of importing more Fiji Water products but Mr Greubel said they had emphasised there were a lot of other bottling companies in the country.
“We are also focused on kava, ginger, turmeric, coffee and cocoa and we also found there was a lot of interest when we mentioned garments.
“We had questions about tourism and we emphasised that the long-term strengths to Fiji's tourism market is still here,” he said.
Acting president of the Fiji-USA Business Council Arif Khan said a lot of valuable information was provided on using consulting companies in the US for exporting products.
“There is strong interest from the US as well on investing in Fiji as well as sharing their services,” he said.
The conference, “Growing the Fiji Brand: US Services Needed”, was said to have attracted US companies which could assist Fijian companies with business to business matchmaking, distribution, marketing, and biosecurity compliance.