Welcome to our first newsletter for the year. Like last year we plan to keep you the membership informed on a regular basis and plan on four newsletters this year as well.
It is already April and we ask where has the year gone. Well your council has already had a complimentary member event (jointly with the Fiji Trade Commission and the Fijian High Commission) in March. The event was to formally welcome Hon Premila Kumar, Fijian Minister for Industry, Trade, Tourism, Local Government, Housing and Community Development.
I also attended a Pacific Chairs meeting in March which was attended by Fletcher Tabuteau, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Disarmament and Arms Control and Regional Economic Development. There I was able to raise matters most topical for our members i.e. double tax and visas for our members with the Parliamentary Under-Secretary.
It was pleasing that we were able to host our first event this year at no charge to our members. We are looking at averaging an event every 2 months - this figure is well above the average across other such organisations. We plan to stay with this pace with the following events already on the agenda:
- Road Show in May
- Business Mission to Fiji later in the year
- Joint Annual Conference
- AGM
Plus, we will host senior Fijian government officials and ministers as when they pass through New Zealand (we are expecting at least another minister)
As always a big thank you to all our members, sponsors and donors for their continued engagement and support of our council. We look forward to your continued patronage.
As mentioned previously please keep those newsletter articles and pictures coming through to Christine Connon at nzfbc@chamber.co.nz
Chandar Sen
President