Fiji is in the process of resolving all issues regarding the ban of a brand of corned beef from Papua New Guinea.
Speaking at the 2016 Business Forum Minister for Trade, Faiyaz Koya says everything is covered by the Melanesian Spearhead Group agreement regarding our trade and Fiji is about to get into a ‘legal scrub’ in regards to the trade agreement.
Fiji had imposed a ban on the popular corned beef in 2002 after PNG failed to meet certain sanitary and quarantine requirements.
The ban almost caused a trade dispute between the two countries which dragged on for the past couple of years.
Koya says in regards to the corned beef, Biosecurity Authority of Fiji had sent recommendations to PNG and they were supposed to follow these recommendations.
PNG ambassador Max Rai was recently quoted in the PNG media saying that the Fijian Government would have to accept Papua New Guinea's Ox & Palm corned beef into its market, if it wanted to maintain Melanesian solidarity.
