Building Online Investment Promotion Capacity In The Pacific
6 May 2004
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Pierre Berthelot, Deputy Director in the Commonwealth Secretariat's Special Advisory Services Division |
Building the online capacity of investment promotion agencies in the Pacific was the focus of a three-day regional workshop held in Apia, Samoa, on 20-22 April 2004. Twelve Pacific Island investment promotion agencies (IPAs) participated in the workshop, which was part of a regional initiative to develop the online presence and capacity of IPAs in the Pacific.
Inaugurating the workshop on 20 April, Samoa's Minister for Commerce, Industry, Labour and Tourism, Hans Joachim Keil, said, This project is vital to all the Pacific Island States in overcoming their geographical remoteness, embracing new technology and facilitating opportunities for economic development in the region.
During the inaugural session, attended by the Governor of the Central Bank of Samoa and senior officials of the Government of Samoa, project stakeholders reiterated their support to the development and sustainability of the initiative. It is spearheaded by the Commonwealth Secretariat through the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation, and the World Bank Group's Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). Other partners include the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat and the Foreign Investment Advisory Service, a joint World Bank-International Finance Corporation facility.
Pierre Berthelot, Deputy Director in the Commonwealth Secretariat's Special Advisory Services Division, said, The purpose of the workshop was to augment the online content developed by the individual IPA websites, besides providing suitable strategies to the regional IPAs. This is part of the Secretariat's initiative to promote competitiveness in small island states. The workshop delivered significant outcomes for the regional IPAs, which have shown a great degree of commitment towards the initiative.
Tessie San Martin, Director of MIGA's Investment Marketing Services Department, noted, Given the limited investment promotion resources of the islands and their distance from potential investors, developing an effective web presence and leveraging the Internet as a channel for investor outreach are critical to their marketing efforts.
During the 12 sessions of the workshop, participants received intensive training in developing critical investor information for their agency websites, maintaining and updating the content, as well as developing competitive investment promotion, marketing and collaborative strategies. In addition, all participants benefited from one-on-one technical training sessions.
Countries and territories participating in the workshop included Cook Islands, Fiji Islands, Kiribati, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Tuvalu, Samoa and Vanuatu, as well as the non-Commonwealth countries of the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, and the Republic of Marshall Islands.
All the participating IPAs made presentations of their websites and content, and four citations were presented: Best Overall Content - Fiji; Best Homepage - Papua New Guinea; Most Improved Website (since initiation of the project) - Samoa; and Best New IPA website - Palau.
This workshop follows an earlier regional training and development workshop held in Suva, Fiji Islands, in December 2003.
CNIS - the Commonwealth News and Information Service, Issue 182 5 May 2004
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