Results for Business

Eight hundred Tongan Seasonal Workers will leave Tonga to work in the Australian horticultural industry in July 2009.

Tonga's largest squash exporter, Nishi Trading Company Ltd., is targeting to export a total of 1,200 tonnes of squash to Japan and South Korea, a slight increase from their 900 plus tonnes exported last year.

Tonga's No. 1 economic problem is that it cannot provide employment for its growing population, including the estimated 2000 school leavers who annually join the work force, according to an Asian Development Bank report that looks at why Tonga's economy is not achieving its potential.

Kiwis snatched the top prizes in the 2008 - 17th Tonga International Billfish Tournament held in Vava'u from September 4-9.

The General Manager of Tonga Broadcasting Commission Elenoa 'Amanaki (63) hands over the reins on public broadcasting when her four-year contract ends on Tuesday, September 30.

The collapse of some financial credit institutions n the United States this month has not directly impacted Tonga, according to the Minister of Finance Hon. 'Afu'alo Matoto today.

Palu Aviation Services opened a new shed at the Fua'amotu International Airport, marking the fast-growing company's sixth birthday on September 17.

The process of privatising government enterprises in Tonga made two steps forward and one step backward in July. The government sold its remaining 75 per cent shareholding in the Leiola Group Ltd., Tonga's sole Duty Free enterprise, to the Pacific Retail Ltd. for $6.06 million pa'anga; and its 40 per cent shares in the Westpac Bank of Tonga to Westpac for $25 million pa'anga. Then government bought back the national power generation unit from Shoreline Power for $US17.7 million and handed it over to its own company Tonga Power Ltd.

Trade negotiations between the small island states of the Pacific and the developed countries of the world remain very complex and challenging, said Tonga's Paulo Kautoke the new Pacific Trade Representative at the World Trade Organisation office in Geneva, Switzerland.