that close to 60 percent of fiji ’ s labor force is involved in various forms of business that fall under the heading of smes ”. these statements show that we critically need data. we need to know more about these sectors if we want to plan for them, rather than using rough estimates and best guesses. we need to know for example how much of our economy is made up of the smes sector, we should know how much is made up of medium sized businesses. we need to know how many people are employed by the various business - size categories and statistics on loans to the various categories of business - size, just to name a few, if we want to have proper, effective and informed planning, decision and policy making to promote growth of these sectors. this could be a role for the national centre or perhaps the bureau of statistics. having such a statistical database is critical in order to do any type of planning at all in regards to these sectors. this will therefore be a necessary input to any national strategy for msmes, and i hope that it will be an issue that will come up in your discussions. at the reserve bank we are doing our part to collect statistics on bank loans. since 2006, we have required commercial banks, credit institutions and the fiji development bank to provide us with data on how much is being lent to micro enterprises, to small businesses, to medium sized businesses and so on. access to finance another key issue on msmes is access to finance. is access to finance a problem for msmes? i think it is, probably more so for small and micro businesses than perhaps for medium sized ones. if so, then we must identify and implement ways to extend this access to financial services to small and micro enterprises. we welcome the announcements by several commercial banks that they are putting greater attention in this area. i am informed that the lending budget for the national centre is usually not depleted. does this imply that access to finance may not be the real issue? perhaps it is the business line or the business structure that is the binding constraint. we obviously need to identify this and find the appropriate solutions. i am pleased that the provision of rural banking services has been progressing well. this has been an initiative that the rbf has been actively encouraging. while much of the early business in this regard focused on savings, this has now progressed to small loans being given out. i commend the efforts of the bank that has been actively going out to the rural areas and

barry whiteside : promoting financial inclusion in fiji opening remarks by mr barry whiteside, governor of the reserve bank of fiji, at the launch of the financial services demand - side survey report, suva, 17 september 2015. * * * salutations the australian high commissioner, ms margaret twomey the un resident representative, ms osnat lubrani the uncdf executive secretary, ms judith karl excellencies and members of the diplomatic corps distinguished guests our financial inclusion partners and stakeholders members of the media ladies and gentlemen welcome and introduction bula vinaka and a very good afternoon to you all. it is my great pleasure to welcome you to the official launch of the demand - side survey report on financial services in fiji. thank you for taking the time to share this milestone event in our financial inclusion journey. after months of collaboration between the reserve bank and our partners, the pacific financial inclusion programme, the alliance for financial inclusion, the fiji bureau of statistics and other key stakeholders, the final version of the report is now ready to be unveiled. many of you present here will know that our financial inclusion journey effectively started back in late 2009 and early 2010, with the setting up of our national financial inclusion taskforce following a gathering of interested stakeholders. these stakeholders agreed to commit to an end - goal of helping our people to improve their lives and those of their families by providing easier access to financial services along with the necessary knowledge and skills to best utilize them. at the time we made a joint commitment to reach 150, 000 unbanked or underserved fijians by the year 2014. this was a priority goal of our first medium term national financial inclusion strategy, which also included incorporating financial education into the fijian schools ’ curriculum. it was extremely pleasing to note that both these targets were achieved well before the end of 2014. collaboration and partnership with all stakeholders has clearly been the key to our success and this must be recognized. and as taskforce chairman i would like to say how grateful i am for the total support given to me and to the reserve bank by the financial institutions, government ministries, civil society and donor agencies – all our stakeholder partners. we share a common vision of making fiji a better place for all our people. but while there have been some key achievements in the past few years, we believe that much more remains to be done to promote and facilitate financial inclusion in fiji. we are now in the process of formulating our 2nd medium term financial inclusion strategy which will