FBC carried another news item from the Fiji Trade and Investment Board (FTIB) today.
This time the spokes is the Acting CEO, Tupou Raturaga a good mate of the current CEO, Annie Reymond-Rogers. Both are ex-Reserve Bank of Fiji employees.
Raturaga's spiel more or less dictates that new (& illegal) investment regulations now permit foreign investors to come in and start up a business without any local participation.
If memory serves us correctly the reason why the prescribed 30% local equity partnership was a prerequisite to investments was to ensure that we did not get overwhelmed by fly-by-night conmen and to also ensure that investment earnings were not simply channelled out of the country without having had some impact on the domestic economy.
The justification behind the new regulation is is that local's don't have enough capital to inject into the business venture (although I'm willing to bet there are many locals who have the means but simply don't want to risk their capital).
Well duh!?! Of course the local's don't. The current state of our economy is such that despite their concerted efforts to paint a rosy picture starting with the central bank, the local's are now being bribed with Government hand-outs like food stamps, busfare's for kids (incidently the coffers are deplete so the free fares have to be applied for AND they're only supporting kids whose parents earn less then FJD$15K) and free textbooks for kids.
What's more they've stationed military personnel out there in all the rural area's to continuously massage the views as well as keep their finger on the pulse of the rural populace.
It is crystal clear that this new and illegal investment regulation has been put into effect to aid, abet and solely benefit Chinese investments.
Full ownership on for Fiji foreign Investors
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
The Fiji Investors Regulation now allows foreign investors to have 100 per cent ownership of their business, to help them increase capital and expand their business.
Fiji Trades and Investment Bureau Acting Chief Executive Officer Tupou Raturaga said this has been allowed as many local shareholders could not contribute towards their share of capital when the business had to grow.
“The difficulties that foreign investors convey to us were the share equity issue. These investors wanted to increase their share capital or expand the business, as local shareholders could not contribute their share of capital in the business as they often did not have the means to finance. So the 100 per cent ownership allows foreigners to bring whatever investment amount from offshore.”
However, foreign investors will still have to meet certain criteria’s if they want to invest in Fiji.
“The Fiji investors regulation 2008 allows foreign investors to set-up this activity in Fiji with controlling interest and all they have to do is invest the minimum investment according to the minimum investment threshold as stipulated in the restricted activity.”
Raturaga says the increasing number of Investors coming into the country clearly show that the incentives in Fiji are attractive.
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