FORUM TRADE OFFICIALS MEETING (FTOM)
Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia
27-28 April 2010
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
by
Mr Tuiloma Neroni Slade
Secretary General
Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat
Distinguished Senior Government Officials
Ladies and Gentlemen
It is a privilege to be in this land, and I want to join in welcoming you all to Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia for the Forum Trade Officials’ Meeting. Your purpose of course is to consider the issues and make appropriate recommendations to the Forum Trade Ministers on trade-related matters of importance to the Forum Members.
2. Before I proceed, let me on your behalf express our sincere gratitude to the Government and the people of Federated States of Micronesia for hosting this meeting and the excellent facilities provided to us.
3. Your work and discussions as Senior Officials are vital to the Forum’s engagement with its Members on regional and international trade issues that affect the sustainable development of Forum Members, particularly the Forum Island Countries. It reflects directly the growing importance of trade to economic development, and to regional economic integration.
4. Forum members have long recognised the importance of deepening regional trade integration as a means to create jobs, enhance private sector growth, raise standards of living and advance the region’s sustainable economic development. The steadily increasing involvement of Members in international trade relations over the past years has reflected political recognition of the importance of trade, regional economic integration and progressive and appropriate participation in the global economy to their economies and to their communities.
5. Regional mandates provided by Forum Leaders through the adoption of the Pacific Plan guide our work in moving ahead with regional economic integration. Deepening regional integration remains fundamental in the Leaders Vision of the Pacific and its achievement depends on the support of all Member Countries. And Leaders have declared the PACER Plus process as part of the key progression towards regional integration.
6. For their part, Forum Trade Ministers stressed the importance of PACER-Plus as a means to underpin the economic security of the region, especially through capacity building and market liberalisation. Ministers have reflected their intention to bolster the capacity of all Forum Island Countries to take advantage of trade opportunities to help their economies grow and become more resilient to shocks such as the current global economic crisis.
7. However, the actual ability of Forum Island Countries to benefit from regional integration and participation in the global economy has been tempered by a range of factors. Unlike larger, more sophisticated economies which have elaborated detailed trade policies over many years and have recourse to large pools of skilled, experienced experts to negotiate and pursue their international trading interests, such is not the case in the Forum Island Countries. It is in light of such limitations and experiences to date that FICs recognise the importance of establishing appropriate trade policy frameworks. Such frameworks will better enable Member Countries to make policy decisions on key trade-related issues such as trading arrangements with their major trading partners. Those frameworks will necessarily be formulated in consultation with key national stakeholders, both from the private sector and civil society.
8. Good progress has been made in the last decade thanks to trade capacity building and trade policy formulation initiatives in the Forum Island Countries, which has been facilitated with the assistance of development partners, including Australia and New Zealand. Such efforts are necessarily long-term undertakings and will need to be sustained and intensified in future.
9. You have all been involved in important developments on the regional trade agenda since we last met; and these are reflected in the Meeting papers before you. Your meeting in the next two days will cover a number of important issues which you will consider and make appropriate recommendations on to the Forum Trade Ministers when they meet from 29-30 April 2010.
10. You will most certainly agree that as a group you have a very important task ahead of you. I am sure that we will be guided by our collective experience and wisdom in our deliberations on the important trade related matters on which we will be advising the Ministers.
11. As I close let me thank you all for the assistance and cooperation you have shown the Forum Secretariat as we endeavour to perform the tasks that are ours to undertake. And again, in your name, let me thank the Federated States of Micronesia and the representatives of the Government who are with us this morning for all the kindness and courtesies extended to us all since our arrival.
Thank You.
