Fiji
Last updated in December 2009
Diplomatic relations between Germany and Fiji were established on 1 August 1973. There is no German Embassy in Fiji, business being taken care of by the German Embassy in Wellington, Nee Zealand.
Trade relations are modest. In 2007, Germany imported from Fiji goods worth EUR 1.1 million and exported to Fiji goods worth EUR 4 million (according to the Fiji Islands Bureau of Statistics; figures as of May 2008). Germany’s main imports from Fiji are vegetable products, and Fiji’s main imports from Germany are machinery and equipment.
Fiji is host to a considerable number of German development cooperation projects operating across the region. Besides activities in Fiji itself, development cooperation extends to the Pacific island states. The main partners are the regional political organization, the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) – from which Fiji was, however, suspended in early May 2009 – and the region’s development cooperation arm, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC).
Since the beginning of 2009, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) and the SPC have been working together on the project "Adapting to Climate Change in the Pacific Island Region". The GTZ is supporting members of the SPC, amongst them Fiji, as well as the SPC itself, in capacity building efforts to deal with the effects of climate change on the island states and to prevent deforestation. This project is a follow-up to a forestation project and is scheduled for conclusion by the end of 2012. 4,2 Mio. Euro have been pledged.
Germany also conducts microprojects with local partners in the infrastructure, school and vocational and technical education and health sectors. Several microprojects worth a total of more than EUR 20,000 are currently being conducted, including a project designed to secure a primary school’s water supply.
An increasing number of Germans are discovering Fiji as a resort. Germans make up the second-largest group of tourists from Europe, after the British. However, since the military coup in 2006, there has been an overall decline in the number of tourists visiting the country.
