I had just joined the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce (as it used to be called in the early-mid-1990s) when I heard my then Director scold a particular colleague with a very weird phrase – ‘You are Turtle Slow’. Initially I did not really understand what that meant. We had only on…

First up, Happy New Year, 2021!

As COVID-19 was declared a pandemic and international travel restrictions, border closures and lockdowns ensued, large numbers of expatriate aid workers returned to their home countries. This significant change in the demography of the aid industry in many countries has led to a shift in rol…

Port Vila has witnessed three massive socio-religious festivals over the past month: Unity Week, Christmas in the Park and Zion Fest Christmas 2020 which ended last Sunday night. Not to mention the other musical competitors.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Internal Affairs recently released a notice of proposed changes that would vastly expand the list of reserved occupations.

The Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations Plus – or PACER Plus – entered into force on 13 December, marking the start of a new journey in which parties will determine and co-deliver their own priorities for increasing trade across the Pacific.

Vanuatu has shifted its economic gear from being a Least Developed Country (LDC) to Developing Country (DC).

Technology needs to be used wisely and well and lots of data has to be collected to help inform the correct decision making.

Young entrepreneurs need to be constantly searching for opportunities and thinking ahead. Instead of being afraid to fail, you need to be afraid not to try.

Our nationwide LDC graduation celebrations today will enter our history books by sunset. But when we awake tomorrow morning, we will still be staring face-to-face with the massive illiteracy rate that keeps haunting us, our children and our educational system like a horror movie that won’t s…

During this series of articles, I am highlighting the passions, visions, and missions of young Pacific entrepreneurs and how they are turning these into sustainable and resilient businesses with the hope that these stories will inspire others! It is a privilege and a pleasure to be working w…

When we graduate from our LDC status next Friday (4th Dec), will we, as individuals and as citizens of this reinvigorated nation also be ‘graduating’ and walking away from our dismal status as one of the top 10 type 2 Diabetic countries on the face of the entire planet?

PACER Plus – a regional trade agreement between Australia, New Zealand and Pacific island countries – will do little to stimulate economic activity in the Pacific. However, Pacific negotiators have had some success lobbying Australia and New Zealand on labour mobility, and have shaped a rela…

This very successful ni-Vanuatu entrepreneur has quietly survived Covid-19. He recently interviewed about 100 locals for his business and selected 3 to work for him. He was saddened though and ‘alarmed by the level of incompetence and lack of skills prevalent in our employment industry’, to …

Abortion opponents won major victories in May 2019 when Louisiana lawmakers voted to ban abortions as early as six weeks into a woman’s pregnancy and the Supreme Court upheld an Indiana law requiring the burial of fetal remains in Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc.

We know that seasonal labour schemes work.

This week’s visit by the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Vanuatu Foreign Investment Promotion Agency (VFIPA) in the northern town has been a major eye-opener. Santo is poised for very interesting times in the coming years. The old sleepy Luganville as we’ve known it for many years ha…

With the government making this decision is to concentrate developing agriculture above all other sectors, the question is which is the best way to go under the current circumstances and what needs to be evaluated, is how long will it take in realistic terms for agriculture to become more pr…

On the partly sunny/cloudy afternoon of 15th Sept – the eve of Penama province’s Silver Jubilee – the former Secretary General (SG) of the Malampa Provincial Government (MPG) Pr. Keith Mala thundered the above words to his very own people of Penama on Saratamata’s historic provincial grounds…

Thank you, Prime Minister, (Bob Loughman Weibur), Minister of Trade (James Bule), Minister of Finance (Johnny Koanapo Rasou) and Minister of Infrastructure (Jay Ngwele) for this historic and memorable joint visit to PENAMA province to mark its Silver Jubilee (25th anniversary).

Paul Theroux once said that the short story is the most diabolically difficult literary form to master. I daresay he never tried writing a mid-term review of a justice or policing program.

When the Foreign Investment Act (FIA) was first created back in 1998, to safeguard the business interests of indigenous ni-Vanuatu, a Reserved Investments List (RIL) was inserted in the Act.

No matter what the crisis or disaster we know it will pass. We know there will come a time when life begins to settle down again even if it does not feel like that now.

We will very likely be ‘Food Secured’ from 2021 onward which will greatly help in reducing our imports bill and the harmful effects of NCDs. But our single most serious and greatest challenge is that of ‘Markets’.