FIJIAN YOUTH MINISTER HOLDS BILATERAL TALKS AT WORLD YOUTH MEET – The Minister for Youth and Sports Mr Viliame Naupoto is in Colombo, Sri Lanka and held talks with his Sri Lanka counterpart Hon Dullas Alahapperuma.
- SENIOR OFFICIALS BRIEFED ON LEADERSHIP TRAINING IN CHINA – Twenty senior government officials will be attending the Leadership Development training at the China Executive Leadership Academy in Pudong, China.
- AGRICULTURE MINISTRY URGES MORE AGLIME AWARENESS FOR FARMERS – The Ministry of Agriculture continues to work with relevant stakeholders to create awareness on the importance of AgLime for agricultural purposes.
1 FIJIAN YOUTH MINISTER HOLDS BILATERAL TALKS AT WORLD YOUTH MEET
The Minister for Youth and Sports Mr Viliame Naupoto is in Colombo, Sri Lanka and held talks with his Sri Lanka counterpart Hon Dullas Alahapperuma.
The Fijian Minister is attending the 2014 World Conference of Youth from 6th to 10th May and highlighted the opportunity
“An opportunity never to be missed when attending such international conferences is the chance to engage in bilateral talks with ministerial counterparts.”
Naupoto also took the opportunity to thank his counterpart.
“I convey my Government’s appreciation to the government of Sri Lanka for the invitation and the hospitality extended to the Fiji delegation throughout the duration of this world conference,” said Naupoto.
The ministers held talks on youth development structures and their mutual relevance and interests for the youth of both countries.
“We must explore the enormous possibilities of pursuing closer relations between our two countries in youth and Sports development,” added Naupoto.
“The experiences of the World Conference of Youth 2014 in Sri Lanka will certainly augur well for the upcoming National Youth and Sports Conference to be held in Fiji in June later this year,” Naupoto said.
The minister is accompanied by the Director for Youth and Sports William Naisara, Fiji National Delegate Jone Nawaikula, World Conference on Youth International Facilitator Sevuloni Ratu, Invited Guest Speaker Krishniel Narayan and Social Media Fellow Mr Fenton Lutunatabua.
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2 SENIOR OFFICIALS BRIEFED ON LEADERSHIP TRAINING IN CHINA
Twenty senior government officials will be attending the Leadership Development training at the China Executive Leadership Academy in Pudong, China.
This is part of the Leadership Development training previously attended by 45 senior officials in 2013.
The delegation departs for China on Saturday, 10th April, 2014 and return on the 25th of April, 2014. The extensive training will begin on 12th April, 2014.
At the Pre-Departure Orientation, Permanent Secretary for Public Service Commission, Parmesh Chand encouraged the twenty officials to make optimum use of the opportunity.
“China is a country built up of a public administration system and operations that deal with masses of people and attract high levels of investment and growth,” Chand said.
“As such we should consider ourselves extremely fortunate to be given the opportunity to be exposed and trained in areas such as the building of service oriented public administration, leadership development, blending of culture in modernization and changes in perception and attitudes in a country which has successfully achieved all these in its efforts.”
The training in China is part of government’s efforts to reform the public service in terms of achieving improved productivity, efficiency and service delivery.
The Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Fiji, H.E Mr Huang Yong acknowledged the collaborative arrangement between the Fijian government and the People’s Republic of China.
“China and Fiji’s relations have achieved great results and the efforts by the government and the people are prevalent as Fiji is the hub of the Pacific,” H.E Yong said.
“This is a great opportunity to further improve the cooperation between our countries from now and into the future.”
Head of the delegation to China, Permanent Secretary for Education, Dr Brij Lal said that the leadership training will be beneficial to all the officials.
“I am very happy with this chance to go as a group to observe China’s systems of operations and how they carry out service delivery,” Dr Lal said.
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3 AGRICULTURE MINISTRY URGES MORE AGLIME AWARENESS FOR FARMERS
The Ministry of Agriculture continues to work with relevant stakeholders to create awareness on the importance of AgLime for agricultural purposes.
Opening the Standard Concrete Industries Aglime Workshop this week, the Ministry’s permanent secretary Mr Ropate Ligairi highlighted the efforts of the agriculture ministry to support Aglime awareness.
“Research and studies that have been conducted have confirmed that most of the soils in Fiji are acidic and are in need of lime to correct soil pH in order to maximize crop yields.
“As such the Ministry of Agriculture recognises the tremendous opportunities of Aglime to agriculture development and we anticipate to support and facilitate for the awareness of this programme throughout the whole country with the help of our locality officers,” Mr Ligairi said.
The permanent secretary reiterated the need for agriculture officers and farmers, through the awareness program, to understand the importance and benefits of AgLime, necessary soil tests and recommendations on how much Aglime to be used.
“Application of agricultural lime is required to improve crop yields, which mean increase in agricultural production and thereby reduce agricultural imports and increase agricultural export.
He also commended the Standard Concrete’s current pool of resources and expertise and the investment into the processing of limestone providing the opportunity for AgLime to be produced in Fiji.
Standard Concrete Industries, General Manager, Mr Mosese Volavola said that the launch of the Fijian made Aglime product in 2013 was the culmination of months of feasibility studies and research.
“The potential benefits of Aglime to the local agricultural industry and subsequent positive impact on our country’s economy are enormous.
“Now that our company is manufacturing Aglime locally at an affordable price to our farmers, it is only a matter of time before it is used extensively in Fiji and like any new product we need to create awareness and educate our farmers, Mr Volavola said.
Other workshops will be conducted in Nadi and Labasa and are co-funded by the Market Development Facility (MDF).
MINFO