Fiji for the first time will chair the International Monetary Fund and World Bank’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C next week.

Minister for Economy, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum is leading a delegation to the United States as the annual meeting begins Monday.

He says the week-long meeting will provide a platform for leaders to discuss the emerging economies and risks of trade wars on small island countries.

“It is the ability to be able to address that at a world forum and what type of measures we can take as a global citizen to mitigate those risks and of course to be able to realize how it will affect us and what preventative steps we can take to be able to buffer ourselves from that risk.”

He adds Fiji is also the elected chair of the Small States Forum in which they will collectively lobby for issues affecting small island developing states.

“Many of the small states also face a number of issues, for example, some of them face issues direct as a result of climate change. You would have seen for example Barbados where the entire country almost got wiped off, still a thousand people are missing so in terms of their ability to access finance, to do the rebuilding, what price they will be able to access that finance, these are some of the very pertinent issues.”

Several key ministers responsible for the economy and finance, and governors of the central bank are expected to be part of the meeting.

Fiji’s delegation includes the Economy Ministry’s Permanent Secretary Makereta Konrote and Reserve Bank Governor Ariff Ali.