ariff ali : launch of the pacific insurance and climate adaptation programme special address by mr ariff ali, governor of the reserve bank of fiji, at the official launch of the pacific insurance and climate adaptation programme, suva, 2 december 2020. * * * his excellency, the new zealand high commissioner to fiji, mr jonathan curr ; mr levan bouadze, undp resident representative ; invited guests ; ladies and gentlemen. a very good morning to you all. introduction as you are all aware, the un world risk report places fiji and a number of pacific island countries as the most vulnerable countries to natural disasters in the world, and the ongoing effects of climate change are likely to eventuate in more frequent and intense events. we also know the significant impact these events have had, and will have on our economy and on our communities, especially the most vulnerable. most of you may not know that my first real employment was as a trainee at the fiji meteorological department. i therefore have a very good understanding of the prerequisite or conditions under which a tropical cyclone is formed. given the current high temperatures, it is a warning sign that we need to prepare for the cyclone season which has already started. last week, we released the latest economic projection for fiji with a slight improvement to the forecasted contraction in the economy for 2020 from 21. 7 % to 19. 0 %. this will be the worst recession on record for fiji, and the last thing the fijian economy needs right now is to be hit by another natural disaster. our forecast for a recovery in 2021 assumes no major natural disaster and at the same time opening of international borders for tourism towards the latter half of next year. the fijian government over the years has funded rehabilitation work post natural disaster in the hundreds of millions of dollars. as the frequency and intensity of natural disasters increase, so too does the need for government to build on sustainable resilience measures. leading up to and during the cop23, there have been a lot of discussions on climate change, disaster risk reduction and parametric insurance. i am therefore very pleased that we have moved a step further from just discussing and planning as we launch the pacific insurance and climate adaption programme today. this means that we will rely less on re - active measures and focus on an initiative that builds resilience by providing agile and immediate post - disaster financing through market led disaster risk financing instruments. this programme fulfils a long felt need of the pacific

. consumers will save. so it ’ s more money for everyone. of course, a lot of things will have to happen before these are realised and i will talk about this later. but we need to get people excited by saying that productivity equals more incomes and this translates to issues that everyone understands like more food on the table, a shelter over our families head and education for our children. do we have a national vision on productivity? if we do, it is well hidden. let us proclaim this vision from the rooftops so everyone can hear. this week, dedicated to productivity, will help in the understanding of the national vision. let me begin this presentation on a global level. we live in an increasingly globalised world. globalisation and all its side effects is unstoppable. the barriers to trade, capital flows and labour migration are coming down. preferential treatments are being dismantled. in this turbulent world, the nice tradition of love thy neighbour if there was ever one, is now out of the window. you either swim or you sink. and when you sink, the rescue operation will be extremely painful. but do we have a say in these world trends? the answer is no. well, no for small island nations like fiji. not only that we cannot change the direction of these global developments, the platform is not level and the goal post can shift. the rules of the game are influenced by those that possess power and they can change these rules. that unfortunately is the reality of the world. but we must take our place in the sun. we must compete. we must be quick to market and be a reliable source of supply of quality products. in summary, we must do more with what we have. productivity is essential for our future survival in this difficult world. before we can measure productivity we need to know what it is. a basic issue to many but an important one nevertheless. there are technical definitions of productivity which i do not want to bore you with today. very broadly, productivity captures our ability to transform our physical and human resources to generate the desired outputs. in layman ’ s terms, productivity refers to working “ smarter ” and not necessarily “ harder ”. how can we measure productivity? productivity can be measured at various levels - individual, firm and national. tpaf identifies several ways to measure productivity. the traditional way is through profitability and liquidity. the other is value added. measuring productivity at the individual and firm level may be easy