BUILDING and construction projects across the country have lost over millions
of
dollars because of the continuing crisis. Like most industries around the country,
the
building and construction sector will contract by 40 percent says Reserve Bank
of Fiji.
As a result, a decline in residential and commercial activity is expected. Dickie
Elder,
general manager of J S Hill and Associates and secretary of Fiji Builders Association
said lack of business confidence in the country is driving investors away. "Many
projects have either been cancelled or deferred indefinitely," said Mr
Elder.
"This will certainly have a significant effect on the industry and the
economy in the
long term. Such projects include the Fijian Resort renovation plans of some
$60
million, the Air Pacific Hotel and Warwick Resort. Mr Elder said most builders
don't
have much to look forward to within the next few months. "There is not
much
government work coming up and the country's steel and cement manufacturers have
ceased production."
Both Fletcher Steel and the countries biggest cement factory, Standard Concrete
have stopped production. The Lami based factory uses over $2 million worth of
electricity in a year. Since May, the company has laid off over 50 workers.
Other companies have also experienced a significant reduction in workforce.
"The
future looks reasonably grim and it will take at least three to four years before
clients attain confidence" said Mr Elder.
INVESTORS consider this. Fiji International Telecommunications Limited has
upgraded
it's internet access overseas.
Since Wednesday, FINTEL Internet Hub at it's Vatuwaqa Communications Centre
was
upgraded to multi-home international access. This means FINTEL has two internet
service providers, one in the United States, the other in Hong Kong. Both providers
work simultaneously with the Hong Kong international route via satellite. The
multi-homed routes can either load share the Fiji internet traffic or work in
redundancy of each other.
FINTEL deputy general manager engineering and business development, Timoci
Ledua said the Hong Kong route holds the latest technology in the market. "Internet
users can now expect continuity of service in case of system failure to one
destination." "It is unlikely that the two internet service providers
will fall at the
same time, so Fiji now has more secure links."
Hooking up with Hong Kong also means we are only four hours behind. Plans to
beam satellite to other Pacific island countries are in place. Mr Ledua believes
FINTEL
can be competitive with the United States, Australia and New Zealand. "What
we
need to build on is our infrastructure." But before that, FINTEL has plans
to migrate
FINTEL's international Internet access links to the Southern Cross Cable Network
when the system is `lit-up' in November.
The advent of the cable system will enable FINTEL to offer the public one of
the
fastest and most secure communications systems in the region. Not only will
Fiji
have access to speed but also to bandwidth required for multi-media applications
and communications. "This means endless opportunities for businesses here.
But the
question is whether Fiji can utilise this new technology," said Mr Ledua.
Establishing
call centres and data processing centres here are some ventures the cable system
is
able to bring.
"We are ideally located and these opportunities if explored will bring
thousands of
dollars to our shores," said Mr Ledua. The decision to multi-home the international
Internet links was brought about by the need to provide increased Internet access
integrity presently provided to the Fiji public through Telecom Fiji's Internet
Service
Provider. Mr Ledua said the recent outages experienced by the general public,
as
end-users were external to FINTEL and beyond FINTEL's jurisdiction.
To multi-home it's links, FINTEL has installed top end 7200 series Cisco routers
and
switches to handle the demands of multi-homing protocols, which the previous
routers were not able to do. The cost to implement such a "fail-safe"
arrangement
for FINTEL amounted to $20, 000. The contract to install, test and commission
the
project was awarded to Fujitsu (NZ) Limited of Suva.
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