The pacific island region has greater challenges in raising its economic status and will continue to face slow economic growth.
This was highlighted last week by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) resident representative for pacific island countries Yongzheng Yang at the end of a three days media training organised by the fund for regional business/economic reporters.
He was presenting to the media personnel about the work of IMF in the region and the role it played in providing funds to its 188 member countries around the globe.
Solomon Islands is a member of IMF and had benefited financially from the organisation as well as through technical assistance over the years.
Mr Yang who had been visiting a lot of the pacific island nations said there are few factors which contributed to the slow growth of the region. These included; increase population, high unemployment growth, increase poverty, the scattered and geographical location and lack of infrastructures.
“These challenges have continued to hinder many of the pacific island countries from experiencing fast economic growth.”
And because of that Mr Yang said IMF is doing its best to address these problems by providing advices and technical support to regional countries to boost their economy.
For the pacific, the IMF sub-regional is located in Suva, Fiji because it location is central to allow IMF personnel to visit around pacific island countries from time to time.
Fiji is also the first pacific islands country to join IMF as a member.
During the presentation Dezhi Ma – the IMF communication officer based in Washington DC also made a presentation about the history of IMF and its overall objective and work around the world.
Pacific journalists who were present during the talk acknowledged the work done by IMF and signed up as a member of the IMF press centre.
By MOFFAT MAMU
