Solomon Islands Need To Diversify Economy

Solomon Islands Need To Diversify Economy: Minister Oti

Minister of Foreign Affairs, External Trade and Immigration, Patterson Oti said Solomon Islands needs to immediately address the supply side constraints of the country's trade sector.

Addressing a media conference yesterday, Mr Oti said the balance of trade between the country's exports and imports is one sided - with imports practically outweighing exports.

He said this has caused a one sector economy.

"With the current narrow based economy we have, there is an urgent need to address the supply side constraints and to diversify to other sectors in order to reduce the vulnerability of a one sector economy," Mr Oti said.

The value of imports in 2006 was close to SBD$1.4 billion while the value of exports was at SBD$851.5 million.

The country depended heavily on logging for government revenue.

2006 figures indicated that 73 percent of the country's exports came from logs while fisheries accounted for 15 percent and cash crops such as coconut and cocoa products amounted only to 6 percent.

Apart from fish - these exports are all mainly in raw form with very little value addition.

He said there is huge potential for value adding and downstream processing for the country's raw materials.

The present government's "Bottom Up Approach policy" is pursuing a diversified economy by encouraging downstream processing of raw materials such as fish and agricultural crops such as cocoa and copra.

"The policy will help our people to create, enhance and capture value on the resources that they own," he said.

Solomon islands major export destinations included China, Japan, South Korea and Thailand while the country imports mainly from Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea.

The imports are mainly in fuel, machinery, transport equipment and food products.

ENDS

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