Celebrating 25 years in business on February 15, the staff and management of ‘Uta’atu & Associates, certified public accountants and management consultants, got together with clients, suppliers and alumni of the firm at the Waves Café on the Nuku’alofa seafront.

Managing Director Christine ‘Uta‘atu, who now employees 14 people, said she started out as a sole trader in Nuku’alofa in 1991, before she formed a company in the former Taumoepeau Building in Hala Fatafehi for 15 years. After the burning of Nuku’alofa in 2006 the company started again in a Kapeta church hall, before moving more recently into expanded premises at the Queen Sālote Ex-Students Centre in Railway Rd.

Christine also established an office with staff in Vava’u, which ran for four and a half years when there was no cellphones and email, but she had to let it go, “in those days it was so hard to communicate then and the phone and fax was prohibitive.”

Starting up and running a company in Tonga is never easy, she said. “I could not have done it without my staff and my clients, the suppliers, banks and the support of everyone,” she said.

For people who are thinking of starting up ventures in Tonga today, Christine said the challenges had not changed. “The biggest challenge is cash flow, absolutely, for anybody.”

Her advice is “work and save some money before you go into business. You might have skills and be making money, but if you don’t get paid today, you still have to pay the rent and pay your staff today. It is always a struggle.”

Christine welcomed the Company Act changes, which made it easier to start a business in Tonga, and the online registrations, which had greatly improved the ease of doing business in Tonga over the years.

However, she noted that today it is a lot harder for businesses to get short term finance. “Cash flow is everything and businesses continually need financial support, there is so much to do. …In the old days you could call up the banks, but the banks here suffered from losses and just don’t trust any one. It makes it harder when a business needs a little something for short term, and now we have all these tight policies from overseas,” she said.