High Commissioner Mark Ramsden Says Fiji Farewell

The outgoing New Zealand High Commissioner Mark Ramsden says Fiji has gone through a lot of positive changes during the time he worked in the country.

“The Fiji New Zealand Business Council has been a wonderful relationship for us and they have done a lot of good stuff in trying to build [a] trading relationship between Fiji and New Zealand so there’s going to be a lot of things that we’ll miss when we leave,” Ramsden said.

He said Fiji and New Zealand have had a few highlights in their diplomatic and economic relations.

Ramsden also said New Zealand had invested in the country through the NZ Aid programme in trying to boost Fijian exports, particularly horticultural exports.

“That’s something that’s been working very well including the work that the Ministry of Primary Industries in New Zealand does to ensure and try and facilitate Fijian exports through the New Zealand border.”

Ramsden said going through Tropical Cyclone Winston while in Fiji was quite an experience for him.

“One of the things that Tropical Cyclone Winston did was really expose the bedrock of the Fiji-New Zealand relationship.”

Prior to his role in Fiji, Ramsden was High Commissioner to Solomon Islands from 2009 to 2013.

Original article by Manasa Kalouniviti, The Fiji Times, October 12, 2017.