Minister’s speech at launch of PHAMA program in Solomons

Minister’s speech at launch of PHAMA program in Solomons

Date 18th May 2011
Venue: Heritage Park Hotel

Acting High Commissioner – Alison Duncan.
Development Cooperation – Australian High Commission – Mr. Peter Wilson.
Colleague Minister – Minister of Commerce, Industry, Labour & Immigration - Hon. Elijah Doro Muala.
Permanent Secretaries.
Government Officials.
Members of the Solomon Islands Market Access Working Group.
Members of the PHAMA team.
Agricultural and Horticultural Produce exporters and all aspiring exporters.
Ladies and gentlemen.

I am indeed honoured to be part of this important occasion.

Export of our agricultural and horticultural produce has been a priority of past governments.

The NCRA government recognize the importance of having a diversified export base.

We have and continue to have cocoa, copra and palm oil as our main export commodities.
The diversification of our agriculture and horticultural exports can only be realised if Solomon Islands can meet import requirements from the importing countries.

My government is pleased that the government of Australia has realised this need and is therefore funding the PHAMA program.

I am also delighted that Solomon Islands is part of the PHAMA program.

What are some issues that PHAMA could be addressing?

Giant African Snail (GAS)

The incursion of the Giant African Snail (GAS) in and around Honiara in October 2007 posed a great risk to our exports.

This includes all items exported from the Honiara wharf.

I sincerely hope that under PHAMA, relevant actions will be taken to enable us to continue with our exports. I do understand that PHAMA’s core business is not to control or eradicate GAS, but to enable Solomon Islands continue to export its agricultural and horticultural products despite the presence of GAS or any other pests for that matter.

Should GAS be found in other ports like Noro in the Western province, I sincerely hope that such actions can be adopted to allow the export of our canned fish from Noro.

In Honiara, land is and will continue to be a scarce commodity.

In this regard, it will be very important that whatever actions are taken to address GAS at the Point Cruz wharf must take into account the limited space available at the SI Ports Authority as well as the limited volume of our exports going out from Noro and Port Cruz wharves.

On this note, I also wish to appeal to all shipping agents and the management of SI Ports authority to actively participate in relevant actions taken to address GAS when complying with the importing countries import specifications.

Capacity building.

Majority of my staff are new recruits. Many were my students at SICHE. Today’s problems are many and complicated. I sincerely hope that under PHAMA appropriate action will be taken to build capacity in MAL to enable my staff to professionally handle and facilitate our agricultural exports.

Exporters and facilitating stakeholders.

To you my good exporters and aspiring exporters; may I urge you to play an active role in the implementation of whatever recommendations that will come about for adoption under PHAMA.
It will be our collective duty to ensure that once we access markets abroad that we also maintain these markets. We live in a world where our agriculture production mode is faced with the challenge to maintain a continuous supply to meet these markets.

I therefore would like to encourage all exporters to not only address marketing alone, but also to venture into the other market-chain related issues.

It is therefore my hope that you will all work with the Market Access Working Group (MAWG) to identify and address appropriate market access issues.

Sharing of lessons learned in other participating countries.

I believe there will be appropriate lessons will be learned from the other participating countries.
If it is not already the intention under PHAMA, may I humbly request that lessons learned in other participating countries be shared with us as well.

Flexibility in priorities areas to address under PHAMA.

I understand that the priority areas to address under the PHAMA program are already set.

That is to say PHAMA will not be addressing market-chain issues.

Some of our neighbouring Pacific Island Countries are already a few steps ahead of the Solomon Islands (eg. Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu), in terms of root crops, vegetables exports.

There still remain enormous gaps in our market-chains when you look at other potential agricultural products for exports.

I would humbly request that there is some flexibility so that some of these market-chain issues are prioritised and addressed under PHAMA.

There is always the assumption that these market-chain issues will be funded by the government or other donors or even under other AusAID funded projects. Eg. RDP, CLIP, PARDI.

History has shown that such assumption does not always materialise.

Conclusion.

As your minister responsible, I pledge my ministries support to ensure that PHAMA as well as other AusAID funded projects, eg. CLIP, RDP are implemented as planned and that the government and the people of Solomon Islands benefits.

At this juncture, I again wish to thank the government and the people of Australia for PHAMA and look forward to a cordial working environment with PHAMA as well as the other AusAID funded projects now implemented through my ministry.

Lastly, may I congratulate the PHAMA team and wish you all the best in the Solomon Islands as well as in the other participating countries.

Takio Tumas - Solomon Islands Minister of Agriculture and Livestock

ENDS

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