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Forging Fiji-Australia Trade Links
Australian Trade Fair Feature
The Suva trade display to be held from June 23 to 26 will emphasise Australia’s interest in encouraging two-way trade with Fiji. Seventy-one exhibitors will show a wide range of Australian industrial and manufac tured products relevant to Fiji’s de velopment programme.
The display, to be held in the con ference centre at the Trade Winds Hotel, will be the fourth major Aus tralian trade exhibition to be held in Fiji. The others were in 1961, 1963 md 1967.
The 1975 display is designed to iemonstrate Australia’s ability to issist in the development of Fiji by ►applying a wide range of high juality products, particularly those equired by growth sectors of the ;conomy such as the building industry md tourism.
The exhibits will feature agricul tural machinery, cranes, hoists and vinches, materials, handling equip nent, refrigeration and air-condition ng equipment, hand tools, welding nachines, auto spare parts, garage :quipment and accessories, building naterials and equipment and builders’ lardware, furniture and furnishings particularly for hotels, etc), house hold and industrial appliances (hotel md catering equipment), office equipment, sawmilling equipment,
pumps, and a wide range of other products.
As well as being a show-window for Australian-made goods, the dis play is intended to underline Aus tralia’s desire to expand two-way trade with Fiji. It will include an “exports bureau”—an illustration of
marketing assistance provided for de veloping countries by Australia’s De partment of Overseas Trade.
The bureau staff will advise Fiji exporters and potential exporters on opportunities open to them in Aus tralia. They will also provide infor mation on assistance available to them in marketing their products in Australia, and on the system of tariff preferences which Australia applies to developing countries such as Fiji and many other Island nations.
Australia regards Fiji as a hub of the rapidly-developing South Pacific area, as well as being an important trading partner in its own right. The Australian Trade Commissioner post in Suva is a centre for Australian trade activities through much of the region, with responsibilities extending beyond Fiji to New Caledonia, New Hebrides, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Gilbert and Ellice Islands, French Polynesia, Norfolk Island, Nauru and Cook Islands.
Australian businessmen visit Fiji in increasing numbers and many Fiji businessmen have visited Australia.
The staging of the fourth major Aus tralian trade display in Suva should help to strengthen the existing trade links between the two countries and lead to increased economic co operation between them.
The Tradewinds Hotel, a few miles outside Suva. Australia's trade fair will be housed in a pavilion built on to the conference centre seen in the right background.