Distinguished guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen.
- Ni sa bula vina’a, and a very good evening to you all.
- It is my pleasure to be with you tonight to mark an exciting new chapter not only for Richard and the Warwick Group, but for our tourism industry.
- Warwick Hotels and Resorts was founded more than four decades ago, and today it stands among the world’s fine names in hospitality, from Manhattan to Paris to London.
- And yet, more than thirty years ago, this international group chose to plant its roots here, on our Coral Coast. Through good times and difficult times, it has stayed. It has invested, again and again. And it has kept its confidence in Fiji and in our people. Richard, I want to acknowledge that.
- Tonight, we look ahead, as the Warwick Group announces two new hotel developments here in Fiji: the Golden Tokatoka Resort, near Nadi, and the Silver Crescent Resort, on the Coral Coast beside the Naviti.
- And the timing could not be better. My Government has set a clear target of roughly 4,000 additional hotel rooms to support 1.25 million visitors and four billion dollars in tourism earnings by 2027. This announcement helps answer that need.
- But when we talk about a new hotel, we should not think only about the building, or the number of rooms. We should think about the people who will work there, the businesses that will supply it, and the families whose livelihoods will benefit from it.
- There will be work during construction, and permanent jobs when the doors open. There will be careers for our young people in tourism and hospitality. And there will be opportunities for our farmers, our fishermen, our transport operators, our tradespeople and our small businesses.
- That is why investment in tourism matters.
- Last year, Fiji welcomed a record 986,367 visitors. That is an achievement we can all be proud of but it also places a responsibility on us.
- We must keep investing in our accommodation, our infrastructure, our aviation links, our service standards and, most of all, our people. Other destinations are investing too.
- Fiji must keep improving, while protecting what makes our country special and our growth must be sustainable, and must benefit our communities.
- When a company like Warwick chooses to build here to reinvest in Fiji that is a vote of confidence in our country. In our stability. In our workers.
- In our future. Government’s task is to keep earning that confidence through sound policies, good infrastructure, and a business environment that is efficient and responsive.
- Earlier this year, I spoke in Parliament about the need to streamline our business approvals and remove unnecessary bottlenecks.
- That work must continue. But lasting prosperity is not built by Government alone. It is driven by our private sector, by enterprise, by Fijians and friends of Fiji willing to invest and to build.
- Tonight, Warwick is doing exactly that. And I thank them for it.
- Let me say one more thing about our future, and who gets to share in it. For the longest while, the growth of our best companies was something many Fijians could only watch. We stay in the hotels. We work in offices. We are proud of them. But ownership has too often belonged to a few.
- It does not have to be that way.
- In 1996, my Government established the Capital Markets Development Authority because we believed, even then, that Fijians should be able to own a stake in the growth of their own economy. Thirty years on, that belief is more alive than ever.
- Fiji has its own stock exchange the South Pacific Stock Exchange. And what an exchange does is simple, and powerful. It lets ordinary Fijians own a share of the companies growing around them.
- It allows the teacher, the nurse, the young worker setting aside a little each fortnight, to become an owner to share in the growth and the success of the businesses rising along our coasts. This is how wealth stays home. This is how the growth of Fiji becomes the prosperity of Fijians.
- And so there is something meaningful in a company that has been part of Fiji for more than three decades now considering giving Fijian investors the opportunity to participate in its future.
- Such a step, subject, of course, to the appropriate regulatory processes and approvals, which must be respected would strengthen our capital market, encourage transparency and good governance, and give our people one more way to share in what they help to build.
- My encouragement tonight is therefore twofold. To our companies: consider our capital market, and let Fijians invest alongside you in what you build. And to my fellow Fijians: understand our exchange, learn the value of investing patiently, for the long term and see yourselves not only as workers in our economy, but as owners of it.
- A Fiji built by Fijians. Owned by Fijians. Shared by Fijians.
- For me, all of this comes back to one thing: confidence. Building new hotels takes confidence in the future of Fiji’s tourism. Considering a public listing takes confidence in our capital market and our people. And remaining committed to Fiji for more than three decades reflects confidence in our country. Richard, I thank you for that confidence.
- I congratulate you, the Warwick Board, your management, and your employees here in Fiji and everyone who has brought these developments forward.
- Two new hotels. Fijians at work. And a future where more of our people share in the prosperity they help to build.
- That is worth raising a glass to.
- Vinaka vakalevu. Thank you and God bless Fiji.
[END]
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