SINPF and O’Neill Remington Group now co-owners of King Solomon Hotel

By Loretta B Manele

Solomon Islands National Provident Fund and the O’Neill Remington Group from Papua New Guinea are officially the new co-owners of King Solomon Hotel.

Manasseh Sogavare, minister for the Ministry of Finance and Treasury highlighted this at the handing over ceremony of the hotel which was held at the hotel yesterday.

He said the two parties have signed a joint venture agreement to be the co-owners of the hotel in which SINPF owns 55 percent and O’Neill Remington Group 45 percent.

Sogavare expressed that the new hotel will help transform the skyline of our national capital.

“It will provide one additional hub for tourists and business visitors to our country and provide a home away from home for ordinary Solomon Islanders travelling from our provinces to Honiara.”

Sogavare pointed out that the majority share is owned by members of the Solomon Islands National Poverty Fund, the people of Solomon Islands.

He said this will be a symbol of national unity in our country.

Peter O’Neill of O’Neill Remington Group also shared his remarks at the occasion.

He said hotels are building blocks for tourism industry in any country and he is very certain that this is not going to be their only investment in this sector in Solomon Islands.

O’Neill expressed that they are also looking forward to other ventures.

“We have been able to travel in your lovely country over the last few weeks and we have witnessed some of the most exotic and beautiful places in the world.

I am certain that the future for tourism industry in this country is very bright and we look forward to being a very strong partner in that.”

Jimmy Rodgers, Chairman of SINPF board also took the opportunity to share their plans for the new hotel.

He said they are hoping to have five suites to help hotels to accommodate leaders who will be in the country for the forum leaders meeting.

Rodgers stated that they will also go into retaining operation of all the rooms and have them transformed whilst increasing the workforce at the hotel.

Meanwhile, it is understood that the SINPF and O’Neill Remington Group will employ all former 69 employees of the hotel.

Rodgers mentioned that this is the third hotel SINPF has invested in.

“This is the third hotel, because we have a share in the resort in Papua New Guinea. So, we are now slowly growing that footprint.”

Susan Kennedy, former King Solomon Hotel owner congratulated SINPF and O’Neill Remington Group on acquiring the hotel.

“My family and I are delighted to extend our sincerest congratulations to you on the successful acquisition of the King Solomon Hotel. This milestone marks the combination of many years of negotiations but as they say all good things come to those who wait.”

Kennedy said they are confident that under experienced leadership, the hotel will be ushered into a new era of excellence in tourism and hospitality in Solomon Islands.

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BY JOHN HOUANIHAU

Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele has shared the GNUT’s vision for the tourism industry at the recent World Government Summit held in Dubai.

The theme for this year’s summit is Shaping Future Governments.

Speaking to local media after his return on Sunday Manele said in his remarks at the tourism roundtable, that he shares the government’s vision for tourism in the coming decades to foster a model of tourism that ensures environmental sustainability, cultural preservation and community empowerment while driving economic growth.

He said he also highlighted the GNUT 2035 goals to increase visitor arrivals to 100,000 per annum, secondly, boost tourism’s contributions contribution to GDP, thirdly increase employment opportunities for local Solomon Islanders in the tourism sector, expand and improve quality room inventory and build a highly trained and skilled tourism workforce.

He said that he also further highlighted to partners present that to achieve these targets the government has prioritised six pillars of interventions.

He said that the six pillars are an investment in infrastructure and connectivity, sustainable tourism development, destination marketing and promotion, regulatory and policy reforms, public-private partnerships and international collaboration and invite global partnership and investment.

He said that more than 30 heads of state and governments, over 80 international organisations, 140 government delegations, and 6,000 participants, including leading global experts, attended the summit.

He said that the third edition of the WGS focused on six key themes including effective governance and accountability, financing the future and the global economy, climate crisis mitigation, and resilient cities, human-centric futures and capacity building, global health transformations and emerging frontiers and the future.

PM Manele said that addressing various aspects of these themes were eight plenary sessions with each plenary covering between four to six topics and speakers with 21 forums with each forum covering six to eight different topics presented by multiple speakers.

More than 40 roundtable sessions and multiple dialogue sessions according to PM.

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By Loretta B Manele

The upcoming “Honiara Summit 2025: Umi Tugeda Delivering on SDG 14:4 Achieving Sustainable Fisheries” will focus on a sustainable development goal based on three pillars.

Collin Beck, permanent secretary for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAET) stressed this during a press conference with the media at the Friendship Hall.

He said these three pillars are economic growth, social development and environment protection all interlinked.

Moreover, Beck stated that over time with our man-made crisis, we have overfished, extracted so much from the ocean.

He added that with the impact of climate change the ocean has gone warm, there is also sea level rise and fish have moved away from certain jurisdictions resulting in the shift of fishing grounds.

Henceforth, Beck highlighted that the summit is nearly like a technical and scientific gathering basically to measure where we are, what we need to do in terms of ensuring we restore depleting fish stocks in different parts of the world, learn from each other, share technology and to share knowledge in terms of doing that.

He emphasized that when it comes to the management of fisheries, we can also make an outreach to other parts of the world to share our experience in terms of how we manage fisheries from a scientific perspective.

Beck said a number of leaders will be attending the summit which begins on Monday 24^th at the Friendship Hall.

The summit set for 24^th to 27^th February is organized by the Solomon Islands government in partnership with the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO), the Special Oceans Envoy of the UN Secretary General and Pacific Community (SPC).

It is an international conference on the Sustainable Development Goal 14.4 which is to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.

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By Loretta B Manele

The summit will be about building partnerships to implement sustainable fisheries in the region.

Collin Beck, the permanent secretary for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and External Trade (MFAET) spoke about this during a press conference with the media.

He was referring to the “Honiara Summit 2025: Umi Tugeda Delivering on SDG 14:4 Achieving Sustainable Fisheries” which will take place from 24^th to 25^th February at the Friendship Hall.

Beck stressed that the summit is about building partnerships with everyone on we can take corrective measures and share with each other how we can best deal with sustainable fisheries.

He said the summit will be a place where scientists and policy leaders will more or less come together in terms of trying to accelerate implementation on the Sustainable Development Goal 14.4 which is to “Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.”

Beck emphasized that this summit is important for Solomon Islands and the pacific region.

He mentioned that nearly all our people live close to coastal areas so having this summit means having discussions that relate to our livelihood and our future.

Beck also stated that the second aspect of the summit is to also issue a political declaration of where we are, what we need to do and going forward, the key messages we would like to put out there not only for attention but for action.

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BY INDY MAEALASIA

THE United Arab Emirates (UAE) is seeking to sign a comprehensive economic partnership agreement, known as SEPA, with the Pacific Islands Forum countries.

Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele voiced his support for the proposal following his return from the UAE on Sunday.

Manele noted that the Solomon Islands, together with Fiji and Papua New Guinea, will lead consultations with PIF countries at the upcoming Ministers of Trade Meeting to convene in Fiji, in two weeks’ time.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and External Trade will be our lead ministry,” Manele explained.

 “I will be speaking with the minister to ensure our people with expertise in these areas, including the Director of Trade, our heads of missions in Suva and Beijing, are involved in the process. Our goal is to expedite the completion of the SEPA, which we aim to sign during the Forum meeting in Honiara this September.”

Manele also mentioned that work is ongoing on the Solomon Islands-United Arab Emirates agreement, which will be incorporated into the SEPA.

This agreement, too, is expected to be signed at the Pacific Islands Forum meeting in September.

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BY INDY MAEALASIA

THE United Arab Emirates (UAE) is seeking to strengthen its relationship with the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) by becoming a Post-Forum Dialogue Partner.

Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele shared the news with local media upon his return from the UAE on Sunday, stating;

“The United Arab Emirates wishes to become a Post-Forum Dialogue Partner. They are becoming a significant player in the Pacific region.”

As the incoming host and chair of the Forum, Manele assured the UAE that the government would carefully consider their request.

“..we will try to see the Forum process dealing with this can be expedited to ensure the forum can make decisions on which countries to be admitted as Dialogue Partners,” Manele said.

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