Call to develop the SI economy
Quoting the Solomon Star newspaper – 24January 2018
Prominent Honiara Businessman and the President of the United Democratic (UDP) Party Sir Thomas Chan is calling on the national government to look into new ways Solomon Islands can develop their resources to grow the economy.
Speaking in an exclusive interview, national government must work together with development partners to bring into country genuine investors to established manufacturing industries.
“We need development partners to find overseas markets for us to manufacture and export our local produce because we have the best pineapple, banana, taro, we have everything we can produce to boost the SI economy,” Chan added.
“We are blessed with abundant of sea and land resources, we sit on a gold mine but we don’t know how to develop and look after it.
“Logging is depleting and the government need to look into other revenue earner for the country such as the agriculture sector, fishery and tourism.
“SI has good climate for agriculture compare to overseas countries that have different seasons of planting crops, in SI we have dry and wet season and we can produce so much and we need to learn from our development partners.
“Development partners are keen to help us but government need to open up land to attract them to come and establish economic developments here,” he said.
He pointed out the current and future government need political will to pass the propose land reform.
“Having tough laws on land will draw investors to venture into big economic developments such as fish farming, prawn farming and cattle farming, this can happen if government leaders work together
“Solomon Islanders must take ownership of their resources because we must not allow others exploitation of our resources and left us with nothing.”
Copyright: Solomon Star newspaper. (All Rights Reserved)
