15 Participants Graduate from Softwood Visual Stress Grading Course
A total of 15 participants from the timber industries graduated from the training on Softwood Visual Stress Grading Course for Fiji Pine at the Ministry of Forestry’s Timber Industry Training Centre in Nasinu yesterday.
The weeklong training was attended by both male and female participants which was based on the Australian Standard 2858 and facilitated by the Ministry of Forestry.
Addressing the graduates yesterday, the Minister for Fisheries and Forestry Honourable Kalaveti Ravu said one way to enhance the contribution of the forest sector was to invest in building and strengthening the sector’s capacity to add value to its products.
“And this this can be achieved through increasing our investments in the training of our people to have the right skills and knowledge, and also in value adding machines and in new technologies,” Honourable Ravu said.
He said the Ministry of Forestry has invested so much in training during the past decades, which has resulted in the increase in forestry contribution to our export earnings.
“On that note, I am proud to announce today that the Ministry of Forestry will continue to provide training and capacity building to our stakeholders including our resource owners,” Honourable Ravu said.
He added the pine industry, through the Fiji Pine Group of Companies was generating socio-economic activities, supporting landowner development and providing employment opportunities and commended the efforts of the Fiji Pine Group of Companies in this regard.
“As the Minister responsible for Forests, it is my aim to have the forestry sector adequately supported such that it is able to continue to enhance its capacity to improve the livelihoods of our people, especially our rural landowning communities,” Honourable Ravu said.
Honourable Ravu said that even though the forestry gross domestic product (GDP) contribution was averaging around 1.0% in the past 5 years, he believes there is huge untapped potential in the sector, in particular the pine and mahogany plantations, to increase their contributions and to enhance the forestry’s share of our National GDP.
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