Consumer cooperatives in South pacific

South Pacific islands remained an unexplored sub-region of the ICA Regional Office for a long time. Australia came in and out of ICA fold several times and the status of their co-operative move ment was known.

The mission to South Pacific undertaken by us with the spon sorship of the Japanese Consumers Co-operative Union (JCCU) is the first attempt to review the co-operative development in South Pacific with special emphasis on consumer co-operatives. As these co-operative movements are still not mature enough to have devel oped single sub-sectors, it is difficult to demarcate boundaries among different types. The problems as well as strengths are more or less common to all sub-sectors, irrespective of being consumer, market ing or credit co-operatives.

We had limited time to spend in these islands, except in the case of Fiji, and also had logistic problems. In the case of Tonga, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, we cannot say that we have done justice. Fiji needed more concentration, not only due to its membership with the ICA, but also the central economic importance in the South Pacific. Fiji has emerged the economic and political power in Micronesian, Polynesians and Melanesian territories.

However, we have tried our best to collect as much information as possible and to meet many persons at different levels from average members to highest levels of executives and politicians possible, in order to obtain a birds' eye view of the region. Responses to our call were tremendous.