Delivered by Viran Brown, Chair of the Officials - Pacific Roadmap and Economic Development Workshop
18 April 2023
Suva, Fiji
Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen. Good morning to you all.
I join the Director in welcoming you all to the shores of Fiji and of course to your Secretariat. Welkam olgeta.
The last meeting of the Economic Officials and Ministers was in Vanuatu last year. During that meeting, Economic Ministers considered and endorsed the draft concept note for the development of the Pacific Roadmap Economic Development, formely known as the Blue Pacific Economic Strategy.
Since the FEMM meeting in Vanuatu, your Secretariat has been working very hard to implement our Economic Ministers decision. I am indeed aware of the significant progress that has been made on this front and we will all appreciate the work done so far during our break-out discussions later today.
I appreciate that some of us may not have had the opportunity to be fully appraised on the development of the Roadmap and I hope that the the break-out sessios will provide us all with an opportunity to discuss in a bit more detail and to also provide your views and comments on the draft goals, outcomes and collective actions which have been developed so far.
The Secreatariat will facilitate the break-out sessions and they will be on hand to provide any support and also guide the discussions.
The outcomes of the break-out sessions will provide the necessary direction to inform the next steps in developing the Roadmap. The expectation is that the Roadmap will be endorsed by the Economic Ministers when they meet in August later this year.
I urge you all to proactively participate in the break-out sessions. Your contributions will help situate and contextualise key economic issues that you are faced with at the national level, and how regional mechanisms like the Roadmap can provide regional impetus for collective economic growth as well as complement your national-led initiatives.
To this end, I wish you all well in your deliberationss today and for the rest of the week.
Thank you tumas.
[ENDS]
