Chaudhry pushes regional

development fund idea

Fiji’s prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry is pushing a proposal for the establishment of a South Pacific Development Assistance Fund at the PALM 2000 summit in Japan.

In an interview at the New Otani Hotel, Chaudhry said the fund would look to industrialised countries for support.

“I will propose that the SPDAF be funded by industrialised countries in the region including Japan, Australia, New Zealand and also the former colonial powers in the Pacific like Great Britain, United States, and France,” he said.

Japanese and Pacific Islands leaders met at the southern resort city of Miyazaki in the Japan-Pacific Islands Leaders summit.

Chaudhry said the main objective of the fund was to lend or provide grant or technical assistance to Pacific Islands Forum island countries for development projects.

He said he has noticed since coming into power last year that

borrowing was becoming very expensive.

“Interest rates and other fees and charges associated with such loans were becoming unavoidable. There’s a real need for such a fund to be established,” he said.“ There’s definitely a case for the fund to be provided either by way of grant, technical assistance or

concessionary rate. The fund would then be made available for designated purposes to forum island countries.

“The focus being on projects associated with poverty alleviation, housing, rural and

agricultural development,

education and health services.

“The Forum island nations are small with vulnerable economies prone to natural disasters.

“In the case of Fiji we had no less than five such disasters in the loast 10 years and it had cost government $5O million. This is a lot of money in terms of Fiji’s economy.”

He said the fund being proposed could provide relief during natural disasters.

The fund, if approved, would be administered by the Asian Development Bank under a separate portfolio administered by a board consisting of the donor governments and representatives of

the forum island countries.

Chaudhry said he had floated the idea to his Pacific Islands counterparts when he was in Honolulu in February. He said the proposal would be presented at the Pacific Islands leaders conference in Honolulu in August. He would also be raising it at the Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Tarawa in November.

Chaudhry said he had been assured by officials of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs that his Japanese counterpart, prime minister Yoshiro Mori, would also be floating the idea at the G 8 meeting at Okinawa in July. Mori is also hosting the PALM 2000 summit. ■

Fiji's prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry