Minister of Finance and supervising minister of Foreign Affairs and External Trade, Gordon Darcy Lilo, calls on PACER Plus officials to "consider the differences in levels of development between negotiating partners."
Lilo made the statement at the opening of the two day meeting of PACER Plus officials which ended in Honiara yesterday.Mr Lilo said there are big differences amongst the Forum countries in terms of income levels, population size, potential for diversification, employment opportunities, human resources, size of domestic markets and potential for integrated industries and economics of scale.
But he said a careful design of PACER Plus can bring about benefits to all.
Lilo says that through development cooperation Forum Island Countries can take advantage of these benefits.
The supervising Foreign Affairs Minister urged officials to take into account important issues such as rules of origin, custom procedures and regional labor mobility when making recommendations to the Forum Trade Ministers.