Press Release Detail

The Fijian Government is committed to Fiji’s national development by enhancing economic growth, capitalizing on emerging opportunities and deliv­ering services that are inclusive and impactful on the lives of all Fijians.

A key part of the Government’s National Development Plan focuses on providing assistance to Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) and the identification of alternative livelihood schemes that will further increase profit mar­gins for small income generating businesses.

This vision is shared by the Min­istry of Forestry and highlighted as a Strategic Goal under its 13-year Strategic Plan to “Improve the socio-economic impact of the For­est and its People”.

The outcome/impact of this Stra­tegic Goal is the support that the Ministry provides in managing sustainable forest based economic activity with forest based indus­tries, increased participation of small forest enterprises and the empowerment of local communi­ties to create employment oppor­tunities.

 Forestry Subsidy Assistance

Through the Ministry’s Subsidy Assistance, support is provided for the establishment of small forest­ry-related businesses, to purchase tools, equipment and machinery to enhance production and quality, and also contribute to value add­ing.

These cottage industries will em­power communities to generate revenue and contribute to econom­ic recovery while utilizing waste wood to achieve maximum utiliza­tion of forest resources.

According to the Ministry of Forestry Permanent Secretary, Pene Baleinabuli, “this support is vitally important in creating an enabling environment for our for­est-based industries to thrive and for business creation to support the livelihoods of our forest-de­pendent communities, while at the same time achieving sustainable management of our forests for op­timum ecological, environmental and socio-economic benefits”.

This assistance has been provid­ed since 2015 (with the exception of 2019, 2020 and 2021 because of budget cuts at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic) and to date has assisted 19 individuals with value adding machinery worth $150,000.

The Handicrafts Market: Glob­al Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2022-2027 reports that “… in recent years, with the emergence of on­line retail and the proliferation of various e-commerce channels, the accessibility to handicrafts has be­come more convenient for consum­ers.

This has provided a boost to the sales of handcrafted goods across the globe. Another factor driving the market growth is the shift from ethnic to contemporary designs, coupled with the strong demand from offices, hospitals and hotels.

Apart from this, the growing travel and tourism industry has provided vast opportunities to lo­cal artisans and handicraft manu­facturers to produce commoditized products and sell them to tourists who are willing to spend signifi­cantly on souvenirs and other craft items.”

The Ministry of Forestry works closely with the Biosecurity Au­thority (BAF) to ensure that wood­en artifacts that are taken out of Fiji by tourists and locals alike are inspected for Non-Commercial Val­ue (NCV) which certifies that the product(s) are safe and free from harmful pests.

Of the 19 SMMEs that were as­sisted through the Forest Subsidy Scheme, 13 are still actively en­gaged in forest-related business, earning an average income of $1,800 per month - an increase of 44 per cent from their previous in­come.

Under the 2022-2023 revised budg­et, $30,000 was allocated for the Forest Subsidy Assistance.

Creatively Using Waste Wood

The Government continues to promote the improved utiliza­tion of waste wood for high value products for the local and overseas niche markets. Since 2010, the Gov­ernment has invested a total of $1.2 million dollars in the Wood Utiliza­tion Project with the objective of finding ways to maximize waste wood utilization through value adding and downstream process­ing.

The Wood Utilization Project un­der the Ministry’s Forest Products Trade & Training (FPTT) Division currently targets 3 specific areas to improve wood utilization namely the harvesting residues, saw-milling residues/wood processing residues and the export fall-downs or materials that have not met the export standards.

As such, the Ministry has been working with Resource Owners and Cottage Industries like Tabs Craftwood and Niu Venture For­ests’ Kavara Wood Art amongst others to use waste wood commer­cially.

Kavara Woodart creates unique hand-crafted hand burnt products. Likewise, Tabs Craftwood is one of our cottage industries based at the Ministry’s Training Centre at Nas­inu. The crafts are created from the company’s export fall-downs which is flooding their export yards in Suva and Lautoka.

Part of the assistance includes training in the areas of basic saw-milling, basic timber drying, tim­ber preservation, timber grading, timber machining and basic fur­niture making. Participants who are currently in training are from Sote and Naimasimasi villages in Tailevu.

Once these cottage industries have established themselves in the local and overseas markets, they will move on to operate on their own. The Ministry intends to ex­tend these trainings to all the ma­hogany plantation estates across the country.