Samoa hosts first trade expo

By Nefertiti Matatia 26 June 2018, 12:00AM

Various businesses from Samoa, Fiji and New Zealand converged in Samoa for the first Trade Expo to be hosted by the country yesterday. 

The two-day Frankie 2018 Samoa Food and Wine Trade Expo, which began at the Taumeasina Island Resort, had businesses from overseas and Samoa building and fostering connections. 

The Expo aims to create a platform for different business owners to expand their networks.

This was according to event organizer and owner of Frankie Company Limited, Frankie Cai.

“The reason was to bring our suppliers together to showcase their products and connecting them with the end-user," he said.

 "This Expo was designed to promote the business and increase the product of the business into our market and extend our product range into our own business.

“Their work has enabled Frankie Company Limited to continue its business of reserving and having all these food and wine product available for sale for our people and country.

 

“Moreover the expo was to further support our focal point in business our customers, our people and community. The reason was to connect them with our suppliers, the businesses that have been supplying Frankie over the years,” he said.

Mr. Cai also shared it has always been one of the key objectives of Frankie Company to support the local manufacturers business and supplies in Samoa.

“Samoa has been invited to attend many overseas trade show and we want to have something here in Samoa where we can work and corporate with our local supplies and local manufactures.

“This expo whereby we will be featuring our local and overseas supply and we hope that this expo will be a success for both local and overseas supply so we can continue to have this expo every year.”

Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi congratulated Mr. Cai for having the vision to go beyond despite the expenses to make the event possible.

“I must congratulate Frankie for the initiative in holding this expo it is not very cheap affair and it very expensive. 

“For him to go out of his way and pay the expenses is an indicative of the great imagination, the entrepreneurship that this business man has and for him to grow his business in Samoa and also help all those other enterprises to have an opportunity to display their wares.

“This is the only opportunity for us to see the initiative of the business people here. The many times we go overseas, like Japan, Australia, American Samoa and many other places who has offered to help expose and even right now and five years ahead I get visited by many representatives from overseas countries to try and ask Samoa to participate and they have promised to even built all the facilities for our business people to come and display their goods.”

Tuilaepa also highlighted some of the experiences that he has had and the importance of the trade expo.

“Recently I was in Japan for the Palm8 Meeting of the leaders of the Pacific and I had the opportunity to see some of the produce from Samoa. I saw some baking’s that were using flour of glutton free flour from breadfruit.

“So when I read the label it says 40 percent of glutton-free breadfruit flour. This was very interesting revelation for me personally because here in Samoa when we established S.R.O.S., we had in mind the need to produce our own secondary products from our own agricultural produce, as being the only way to beat the very strict quarantine law of New Zealand and Australia.”

He explained: “This is the only that we could beat the system is that we engage with secondary products, now I’m told we have glutton free flour produced from breadfruit and we have the best whiskey produced from taro. Also asked to produce the liquor and Samoa rum, everything must have the label Samoa because it will make the product sell.

“Samoa should always be proudly displayed for everybody to see.”

By Nefertiti Matatia 26 June 2018, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

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