By RACHNA LAL and RANOBA BAOA
A high-level three-day meeting on strengthening inter-island shipping and logistics in the Pacific island countries will start in Suva today.
This will be held at the Secretariat of the Pacific Community regional office in Nabua.
Secretariat of the Pacific Community director of Economic Development Division, John Hogan, said the meeting will be looking at different aspects of the shipping industry in the Pacific.
It would provide an opportunity for authorities and stakeholders in the shipping industry to discuss, look for solutions to current and emerging issues and concerns relating to shipping in the region.
It is expected to address issues such as development of proper infrastructure, regional shipping service delivery, domestic passenger carrying vessels and sustainability.
On the agenda
Mr Hogan said some of the things on the agenda are the different trade routes, how shipping can assist the goods from outer island and transport it to main distribution points.
“It’s looking at port efficiencies, it’s looking to see how ports can improve their operations through scheduling or those types of things and it’s looking at hub ports,” he said.
“So it’s looking to see how bigger ports in the Pacific can be used to assist smaller ports. And then it’s looking at the different shipping arrangements of shipping companies.
“It’s looking at the way they do their services, things with the Pacific Ship Commission.”
Around 70 delegates are expected to participate in this forum, representing the public sector (administrators and policy makers) and private sector (operators).
Not only talks
Mr Hogan said the meeting has been broken up into different sections and there’s hopefully going to be a lot of debates after the presentations.
“And so at the end, there will be an outcomes document on what each of the country have put in and try to implement,” he said.
“What part of this meeting is going to do is build on some of the successes of some of the initiatives that have already taken place.”