A call for Overseas Tongans to invest in Tonga [1]
Friday, April 27, 2007 - 14:32. Updated on Sunday, November 2, 2014 - 19:25.
Editor,
The urgent underline problem that Tonga as everybody knows is economic recovery and us abroad hear the news that Tonga cannot do away from soft loan. This is not deniable; the government diplomats negotiate to loan appropriate investment to recover her economy. If I refer to the article from Mrs. Senolita Swan in March 25, this is another prospective to explore. The Statistics show that the population of the Tongans abroad is more than 80,000 people, data to be verified. This table below highlights the indicative investment package if all the Tongans willing to invest at no risk include diplomatic negotiations with our friendly countries and that is a call to all diplomatic offices abroad to spark the ideas as an "investment package".
The idea is always easy to conceptualize but the appropriate strategies to make the above investment happen are the million questions to answer. I think if the government put emphasis on the above objective to call through the diplomatic offices, churches and community base, media and so forth, the people could be convinced even a few potential overseas businesses and our countries of friendship to invest in Tonga on the purpose of economic recovery. The different from soft-loan is quite significant of where Tonga must pay back the amount you loaned on a discount factor of less than 1 percent but the above negotiation package would allow your Reserve Bank to re-invest the above money locally for the development of Tonga. I admit that I am not an expert on banking but it just an idea to substantiate the bright idea that Mrs. Swan shared on this healthy forum.
Where to start is the best question and I suppose that a mission coordinate by the Minister of Finance and the Governor of the Reserve Bank together with your diplomats overseas include churches and media could shape the ideas and agreed upon something to encourage investors to invest in Tonga in a reasonable period and they could easily withdrawn their investments on certain period agreed. The technicality of this idea is beyond but I hope that the government could consider this avenue and see if the Tongans abroad could stand up like what the Jews did half century ago in developing their love Nation from their wealthy Jews who lived abroad.
Meanwhile the courageous negotiation for opening up business ventures in Tonga is the way forward to recover your economy in the long run. All the best and keep up the good works.
'Ofa atu,
David Tapiaka