Fiji Media Crackdown To Hurt Economy, Foreign Investment

Fiji Media Crackdown To Hurt Economy, Foreign Investment - Australian Minister

By Neil Sands - 

JUNE 29, 2010

Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

MELBOURNE (Dow Jones) A crackdown on foreign media ownership in Fiji will damage the island state's economy and deter foreign investment, Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Tuesday.

Smith condemned a Fijian decree imposed this week forcing all media outlets to be 90% locally owned within three months, saying it damaged both free speech and the country's economic prospects.

In comments that drew a sharp rebuke from Fiji's Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, Smith said the foreign ownership cap could deter investment in Fiji.

"That will have very substantial and serious deleterious effects on Fiji's economy and adversely affect the prosperity of their people," Smith told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

He described the action by Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama as regrettable and said his regime "continues to take Fiji backwards."

Since Bainimarama came to power in a bloodless military coup in 2006 he has cracked down on press freedoms, censoring reports and expelling foreign reporters and media executives, as well as suspending the constitution and pushing back the deadline for promised elections to 2014.

Fiji's economy, heavily reliant on sugar exports and tourism, has experienced sluggish growth in recent years due to political tensions and lack of progress implementing economic reforms, according to a report released in December by the International Monetary Fund.

The report predicts a fall in foreign direct investment in Fiji to an estimated US$264 million in 2010 from US$415 million in 2006

Sayed-Khaiyum said Smith's remarks were inaccurate and Bainimarama's government had worked to liberalize the economy to make Fiji more attractive to investors.

"The people who know Fiji, the people who are investors or would-be investors in Fiji, know that the issue of the media is very, very separate to the private sector investment that takes place in other sectors," he told Sky News Australia. "To draw some type of correlation is completely misplaced."

News Corp.'s (NWS) Australian subsidiary News Ltd.(NWS.AU), which says it will have to dispose of its only Fijian newspaper The Fiji Times under the decree, has described the move as a blow to the country's fragile economy.

"This is an outrageous precedent that will make foreign investors in other industries very nervous about their involvement and support there," News Ltd. Chief Executive John Hartigan said in a statement Monday.

News Corp. owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of this newswire and The Wall Street Journal.

The Fiji Times is the largest newspaper in the country by circulation and has long had a tense relationship with the Bainimarama regime. News Ltd. said Monday that reporters at the newspaper had faced physical intimidation from the military-led regime and two managing directors have been deported in the past two years.

Sayed-Khaiyum said Fiji wanted to ensure its media wasn't run by foreigners who had no interest in the country's future.

"The media organization needs to have a stake within the country itself," he said. "They need to be pro the country, I'm not saying pro-government, but pro the country."

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said the way Fiji had set about controlling the media was heavy handed.

"We want to see democracy restored in Fiji because we want a full operating economic environment," he told reporters. "When you start banning media and telling organizations to sell their newspapers, to me it sounds like a step too far."