Issue No: 627; 26 March 2001

The concern was expressed at the Chamber's Annual meeting on Friday. The concern was expressed after the address of the Chief Guest, the American Ambassador Osman Saddique. Saddique stated that Fiji's reputation overseas had slipped rapidly and that the country was not associated with long term political instability. He stated that the country was plagued with such instability for the past 15 years. He stated: "An unstable political and economic environment has severely limited Fiji's ability to attract capital to rebuild the essential infrastructure without which businesses can not expand".

The Chamber of Commerce took the bold step of becoming a part of the Fiji Blues Campaign calling for the reinstatement of democracy and the 1997 Constitution. But since after the early days of the Blues campaign, the Chamber took a relatively backseat. More recently, the Chamber's President Natwarlal Vagh had welcomed the reappointment of Laisenia Qarase as Prime Minister despite the fact that the appointment was unlawful. Vagh is a renown middleman. Most middlemen in Fiji benefits from the Qarase regime's lack of transparency and good governance.