[File Photo]

Minister for Trade Manoa Kamikamica is hoping to secure some investors interested in Fiji’s tuna industry in the coming months.

Kamikamica says he will be travelling to the United States as well as Europe for this.

The Minister says Fiji and the Pacific have not really benefited from its tuna stock, and the negotiations on tuna subsidies did not progress further as some World Trade Organization members did not support it.

Trade Minister Manoa Kamikamica

Kamikamica says the Prime Minister is on the same page that Fiji needs to take advantage of its tuna industry.

“I have the blessings of the Prime Minister to go and look for investors, and there are some good signals coming, so hopefully in the next six to twelve months we can start progressing down that line to create our own industry.”

Kamikamica says the fisheries subsidies currently stand at US$22 billion, and the Pacific needs to try to manage its own tuna industry.

“Why are we surrendering our fishing stocks to other countries to come and fish? It’s like the Arabs and the Middle East saying to other countries, Come and use our own oil, and then we only get little bits at the end.”

The Pacific is home to two-thirds of the world’s tuna stock, and Kamikamica says Fiji is working alongside neighboring Australia and New Zealand to try and create some rationality in the highly subsidized industrial environment.