Tonga can ride the tide of economic growth [1]
Saturday, September 30, 2000 - 09:00. Updated on Wednesday, January 20, 2016 - 17:57.
From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 15, no. 3, September 2000.
Tonga has all the right ingredients to ride in the unprecedented rising tide of economic growth that was currently being enjoyed by the USA and other countries of the world, the American Ambassador to Tonga, Mr M. Osman Siddique, said at the launching of the Tonga-USA Business Council, at the Dateline Hotel on September 1.
Mr Siddique said that the USA since 1990 had recorded a 24% rise in its gross domestic product, and the economic growth rate in countries like India, “has gone through the roof.”
He said that Tonga was a beautiful country, politically stable, with a high literacy rate of 95%, and was a god-fearing country. “So, I want to see some real growth in this economy. But how are we going to get Tonga onto the band wagon of economic growth?” he asked.
He believed that if members of the Tonga-USA Business Council tried to achieve four points he recommended, it would in turn enable Tonga to achieve some real economic growth. These were Entrepreneurship, Privatisation, Free Trade and the Internet.
The executive of the TUBC announced at the meeting: Patron, Hon. Ma’atu; President and CEO, Stalini D. Naufahu; Vice Presidents, Paulo Kautoke and Peter Vamanral; General Secretary, Saimone Vuki; Executive Secretary, Sandra Naufahu; and Treasurer, Albin Johansson.