Investment Fiji tweaks activity
INVESTMENT Fiji had to pivot its operations after the COVID-19 pandemic struck last year, according to chief executive officer Craig Strong.
He revealed this during Investment Fiji’s submissions to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Economic Affairs on its 2016-2017, 2017-2018, and 2018-2019 annual reports yesterday.
He said they had 72 key performance indicators which were based on the number of projects that were registered.
“What we decided to do largely with COVID is really just to narrow it down to four key things and that is what is our contribution to the Fijian economy,” said Mr Strong.
“We thought that these four key things that we need to deliver one and this is from $1 value perspective, foreign direct investment, domestic direct investment, our export revenue and the employment that we created.
“So based on the previous three years, in terms of the investment projects that will be registered, we looked at them line item by line item and said, OK, which ones do we believe in our heart of hearts will materialise into an actual investment contribution this year.”
From a foreign direct investment perspective, Mr Strong said they would capture or actualise about $143 million.
In terms of domestic direct investment that would actualise $104 million, exports would bring an additional $50 million to the current trade revenue, and would create about 2000 jobs.
“Year to date, as at the end of February, we are nominally down on foreign direct investments by 1.7 per cent.
“We are up on domestic investments, we’re 15 per cent down on exports, obviously, global demand has shrunk and we are about halfway through achieving our 2000 employment target.”
Mr Strong said as an organisation they could really focus on - in terms of their COVID recovery to sustainability - what their contribution to the economy was.
“We also then looked at as an organisation what we do before our customers, our trade investment customers, and we looked at what they interact with.
“There’s pretty much five things that we have to deliver to our customers and that is because we understood that at the end of the day, what we are here is our export customers and our investment customers to help them make money.”
He said one of the five key areas Investment Fiji would focus to deliver on a day to day basis was the speed of processing the export and investment inquiries.
“So when a customer comes to us and they want to know some information about trade or investment, we are very expedient and how we process.
“The second is the accuracy in that process. The third is acknowledgment. The fourth is guaranteed delivery time.”
The fifth area which Mr Strong believed was the most important was the commercial and technical knowledge, because they needed to make sure they set themselves apart from other investment destinations in the Pacific.
“So if you’re an investor calling into Investment Fiji, we should be competent in our knowledge in terms of all aspects of the commercial sphere of Fiji, and also have a critical understanding of the technical aspects that we need to do to take an investor through that process.”