160 foreign investment applications have been received by Investment Fiji up until June.

Chief Executive Godo Müller-Teut says 20 of these companies have already started operations.

However, there is a certain amount of laxity in terms of the investor informing the authorities of its progress.

“We usually get the declarations sometimes one or two years later – usually when immigration requires visa renewals. That’s when we suddenly realize that a company that was registered in 2013, commenced in 2014 but we didn’t hear about it until 2015.”

Muller-Teut adds that Investment Fiji is working on different data flows to understand the real input and how long it takes applicants to set up their business.