Fiji’s Coalition government strongly believes that addressing the country’s priorities head-on is the cornerstone to building a progressive and prosperous nation for future generations, says Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka.

Speaking at the National Economic Summit 2023 in Suva today, Rabuka said the event was an opportunity for Fiji to take stock, make necessary changes, and move forward decisively.

The last summit was held 15 years ago.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji economy reports

Rabuka said the meeting would address daunting challenges faced by Fiji, including unsustainable national debt levels, geopolitical and global economic uncertainties, and the impact of the covid-19 pandemic, particularly on small island developing economies like Fiji.

“As a Small Island Developing State, we are vulnerable to such events which are beyond our control,” he said at the Grand Pacific Hotel.

“It is critical that we must make timely adjustments so that we can cope and be able to survive in the global trading environment.

“We have just been through one of the world’s worst pandemics of modern times, with covid-19. It affected the whole world.

Russian-Ukrainian war
“The Russian-Ukrainian war in Europe made our efforts to recover from the pandemic more challenging, particularly due to the supply-chain issues. We must address these challenges collectively through this summit, and craft solutions together as a nation.”

Rabuka, wearing an Adam Smith tie, referenced the renowned economist’s 1776 book The Wealth of Nations, and urged those implementing the summit’s outcomes to be mindful of Smith’s principles of free market and capital formation for economic growth.

The Prime Minister also noted a need to strengthen laws and institutions, as well as restore investor confidence and improve the business environment while protecting the country’s natural resources.

“We need to rebuild our infrastructure which has been neglected, and most importantly look at ways to ease the burden of the high cost of living for our people,” he said.

“We need to strengthen the private sector which we so glibly call the ‘engine of growth’. It is important to promote trade and build the confidence of the private sector.”

Strengthening multilateral and bilateral relations with Fiji’s trading and development partners was also a key point raised by Rabuka as he shared that the findings and recommendations from the summit would contribute to the formulation of the national budget and “our National Development Plan”.

“Reshaping our future means more than just promoting economic growth and development.

Brighter future
“A brighter future for our nation requires our communities to be united and move away from divisions,” he said.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Professor Biman Prasad said plenary sessions had been organised to set the scene for more detailed discussions on macroeconomic management, key growth sectors, governance and reforms and human development.

“We have an intense two days ahead of us. We are putting special focus on critical issues such as water resource management, transport, energy and technology.

“We are also casting a wider net over rural and outer islands development, land and marine-based economic activities and indigenous participation in business.

“There are 32 specific subject areas for discussion,” Professor Prasad said.

It is understood each summit participant has been allocated a thematic working group with a communique expected to be issued at the conclusion of the event tomorrow.

Viliame Tawanakoro is a final-year journalism student at USP’s Laucala Campus. He is also the 2023 student editor for Wansolwara, USP Journalism’s student training newspaper and online publication. USP Journalism collaborates with Asia Pacific Report.

Papua New Guinean Prime Minister James Marape says an aircraft with four Chinese businessmen on board had complied with requirements before they were allowed to fly into Port Moresby.

The government has also confirmed that another case of covid-19 has been detected in Papua New Guinea – a second soldier, taking the country’s total to 10.

Responding to questions from EMTV News, Marape said that no quarantine measure was broken as the Chinese businessmen came in under the request of Minister Wera Mori and measure no. 2 paragraph 12 was used to allow them not to quarantine – but instead self-quarantine in a hotel while conducting business.

READ MORE: PNG military in lockdown over covid spread fears

The four Chinese nationals were tested 14 days prior to their arrival, with the results negative, allowing them to arrive under strict self-quarantine measures.

The Prime Minister’s comments come after the opposition Peoples’ National Congress Party (PNC) leader and former prime minister Peter O’Neill called on Marape to state clearly their business of travel and why the 14-day quarantine period did not apply to the four foreigners.

Marape also said that at some point the country needed to open its border to allow for business to operate normally. This would be the first step.

Murray Barracks soldier positive
RNZ News reports that Police Commissioner David Manning had said the new covid-19 case was a 27-year old member of the PNG Defence Force, who worked at the Murray Barracks in Port Moresby.

The case was picked up during mass testing of staff at the barracks where PNG’s 9th case was recorded last week in a visiting Australian soldier.

“The identification of this case provides evidence of local transmission in Port Moresby and the risk is very high that more cases may be identified in the coming days. Papua New Guineans need to take responsibility and remain vigilant to stop the chain of transmission,” Manning said.

“The country needs to work together to apply the ‘Niupela Pasin’ or the ‘new normal’. This will involve changing our old ways of doing things and replacing them with behaviours and actions to reduce risk of getting infection.”

The commissioner has urged people in the PNG capital to maintain social distancing and avoid mass gatherings.

Meanwhile, Manning said that PNG’s 9th covid-19 case had safely returned to Australia.

Adelaide Sirox Kari is an EMTV News reporter.

In her passport, Nesita Manceau lists her occupation as “housewife.” But she does oh-so-much more. On paper at least, she’s a corporate titan. And she’s been tangled in an arms-running scandal involving North Korea and Iran.

Manceau is what could be called a “zombie director” of shell companies. She’s been on the boards of scores of them. Lawyers in Florida, Oregon and Nevada have clients who call on her services.

The 55-year-old Filipina, who until recently was living in Vanuatu, exercises what is required of an offshore corporate director: She simply signs her name. Time and time again.

Practically the sole function of an offshore corporate director is to cloak the identity of the real owner of a company or trust.

The director serves as a legal shield, of sorts.

The documents known as the Panama Papers teem with these zombie directors who sign corporate papers at the bidding of unidentified owners.

Such directors can oversee, at least on paper, hundreds – and sometimes thousands – of corporations.

Crucial cog
They are a crucial cog in the machinery of foreign law firms and registration agents who churn out phantom corporations, stock them with proxy directors, slap a soothing name on them, and register them on atolls or far-away nations. It is a volume business.

True owners of the shell companies often want passive directors with no control over, or even knowledge of, actual operations. Secretaries, Burger King cooks and housewives will do.

Corporate registration agents like Mossack Fonseca, the Panama law firm whose 11.5 million leaked documents comprise the Panama Papers archive, earn extra fees when they stock the boards of offshore entities with nominees who usually have no clue as to the identity of the true owners.

“The fact is, if you waterboarded them, they wouldn’t come up with the name of the beneficial owner because they don’t know,” said Jack Blum, a Washington lawyer who has spent decades investigating money laundering and the use of offshore corporations.

But when government investigators come around trying to figure out who owns an offshore corporation, Mossack Fonseca offers up their names as if they had an actual financial stake and knowledge of operations.

That happened in 2011, when the director of the Financial Investigation Agency of the British Virgin Islands, Errol George, wrote to Mossack Fonseca inquiring about Fincom Trade Ltd. A company officer quickly responded.

“The Beneficial Owner of the company is Ms. Nesita Manceau whose address is: 1st Floor, Pacific Building, Port Vila, Vanuatu,” wrote J. Elizabeth Maduro.

‘See-no-evil’ directors
See-no-evil nominee directors are the mirror opposite of directors in the real corporate world, who usually have firsthand business experience that they use to hire and fire chief executives, oversee corporate decisions and protect shareholder interests.

The massive leak from the Mossack Fonseca law firm, shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and its partners, including McClatchy Newspapers, includes emails, copies of passports and financial records, which all cast light on the structures used in offshore companies, including the functionaries like Manceau.

Manceau was born in a remote Philippine hamlet called Cabay in Eastern Samar province. Her former husband said she once served as a housekeeper after moving to Vanuatu.

• Read the full story on the Vanuatu Daily Post website  

The Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA) said today in a statement two “notorious tax havens” – the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands – are among the top foreign owners of New Zealand companies.

“In both cases, they rank ahead of China, just to put it into perspective,” CAFCA said

“So who are the actual owners? They, of course, remain hidden or even ‘confidential’, because that is the purpose of tax havens,” said CAFCA coordinator Murray Horton.

“Who knows what dirty money and ill gotten gains, and from whom and from where, might be coming into New Zealand via these tax havens.

“But does the government care? Of course not, because it is ‘foreign investment’, which must, by definition, be a good thing. Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

New Zealand’s foreign control Key Facts:

“Statistics NZ figures, as of March 2015, list the biggest foreign owners of New Zealand companies as being from, in decreasing order: Australia, US, Hong Kong, UK, Singapore, Japan, Canada, Netherlands, British Virgin Islands, Ireland, Cayman Islands, China, Switzerland, Norway and France.

“All had over $160 million in foreign direct investment in New Zealand. These accounted for 96 percent of foreign direct investment in New Zealand and Australia alone accounts for 52 percent. British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands are tax havens, and a Statistics New Zealand study showed that in 2010, large proportions of the foreign direct investment from the Netherlands, Singapore, Hong Kong and tax havens was in fact from other countries, led by the UK, US, Germany and Canada.

“In 2015, Other tax havens with investments in New Zealand companies include Vanuatu, Channel Islands, Liechtenstein, Bermuda and the Bahamas, but for all except Bermuda, the value of their holdings has been suppressed as ‘confidential’.

“Bermuda has shown a negative investment in New Zealand companies since 2009 (negative $1.8 billion in 2015). So has Germany since 2013. Negative investment suggests that the companies may have been loaded with debt to their parents or are technically insolvent.”

• The full CAFCA Key Facts plus tables
• The Panama Papers – the full ICIJ investigation

Last night’s Radio Waatea/The Daily Blog Fifth Estate on the Panama Papers, tax havens and money laundering.