Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade, Cooperatives, Small and Medium Enterprises and Communications, Manoa Kamikamica is happy about the achievements made during his first year in Government.

After 33 years in the private sector, Mr Kamikamica says to have learned one thing: reacting to public comments quickly is crucial.

“In my view, people just want a straight answer. In terms of speed, I agree, we could do things a little bit faster, but certainly in my role as the Communications Minister, it’s my job to speed up and make this more efficient,” he said.

 

 

“Before we came into Government, we had a theme of rebuilding Fiji and that made its way into the 2023-2024 National Budget.”

Mr Kamikamica highlighted three of the ministry’s biggest achievements.

 

 

ICT

 

This involved the Google announcement, which allowed Fiji to have another internet connection creating significant resilience and open opportunities for more Information and Communications Technology (ICT) type of business.

“The estimates are that it will grow the economy by $1b to $2b potentially,” he said.

“ICT Day, we are trying to encourage more girls to enter ICT, and cyber security priorities are quite big for us so now.

 

 

It’s a big push to bring Fiji to the Budapest Convention which is the convention on cyber security. That is looking good for us, so we are planning to make a formal request next year. “

Mr Kamikamica said one involved the creation of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework which was an initiative of the previous Government.

“We decided to maintain the invitation from Joe Biden to create the Indo Pacific Economic framework. It consists of 14 countries including Fiji. 14 countries represent 40 per cent of the global GDP,” he said.

 

“We are now in discussion with some very serious economic powerhouse economies in the country quite directly with the view to looking at opportunities for further development.

“That has never happened in the past and you have to give some credit to the previous government, but I think we’ve sought of been able to complete that agreement in a very fast time.”

 

 

Repeal of MIDA

 

Mr Kamikamica said one of the biggest highlights of his involvement in government was seeing the repealing of the draconian legislation of the Media Industry Development Association (MIDA).

“My ministry was part of the MIDA repeal consultations that assisted with the whole process of getting that through,” he said.

“That was one of my highlights of serving Fiji, was seeing that pass because it didn’t only signal to Fiji but to the world that Fiji is now under democracy, where we can speak freely and not be scared.”

 

 

Economic Agreements

 

Mr Kamikamica looks forward to getting the genuine benefits of the economic agreements that they sign up for.

“Just the fourth think I would like to look forward to is with these economic agreements that we are finalising, just trying to extract real, genuine benefits like sometimes, we sign up to these agreements and then they gather dust on shelves and then nothing happens.

“We need to turn these into economic opportunities,” he said.

 

 

Feedback: Beranadeta@fijisun.com.fj