The American Samoa Chamber of Commerce is now the newest member of the Fiji-based Pacific Islands Private Sector Organization. The PIPSO board approved the new membership during the regional organization’s 9th General Meeting in Nadi, Fiji in July.

“We joined as a result of our Chamber board member Tuai Auva’a-Mua who attended the PIPSO meeting in Fiji and recommended to the [PIPSO] board that we join to be part of the Pacific business network,” local Chamber chairman David Robinson told Samoa News late last week. “We are pleased to be a member of PIPSO.”

PIPSO chairman Klaus Stunzer calls the inclusion of the American Samoa Chamber as a PIPSO member “an exciting development” and says that PIPSO looks “forward to a fruitful working relationship” with their American Samoa counterpart.

“There are trade opportunities for the businesses in American Samoa with the rest of the Pacific. With the recent inclusion, this takes the regular membership to 15 countries,” he said in a PIPSO news release on Wednesday (local time).

“American Samoa has very close links to the Pacific community particularly to neighboring Samoa and we recognize there are great business opportunities and learnings to be shared with and amongst the wider PIPSO membership, and now with American Samoa Chamber in the fold,” he said.

Robinson said he is sure that being part of PIPSO and “the access this will give us to information sharing with other members, will afford our membership a variety of added benefits and enable us to identify new ideas for training, technical and financial assistance programs.”

“We are a very small economy relying on the two tuna processing canneries and government employment to support us, so we need to continue to develop strategies for increased private sector development, particularly our small and medium size businesses,” he said in the PIPSO news release.

And being a member of PIPSO would greatly assist young American Samoan women entrepreneurs to identify new opportunities to develop their businesses, he said.

According to PIPSO, the American Samoa Chamber will be classified as the territory’s focal point for private sector issues. It will have access to PIPSO’s network of members both regionally and internationally and invitations to participate at all regional events will be extended to its members.

The local Chamber is the 15th member of PIPSO, established in 2007. Additionally the Chamber will be a Council Member on the PIPSO Governing Council.

Meanwhile, during the PIPSO general meeting, Samoa Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Tuala Pat Leota presented a US$2,000 donation to the Vanuatu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI).

The donation came from fundraising efforts held during the weeklong 2Samoas Trade Fair in April in Pago Pago, as a Fashion Show, showcasing Samoa and American Samoa fashion houses.

The trade fair was organized by the Samoa Chamber of Commerce, American Samoa Chamber of Commerce, and the Samoa Small Business Enterprise Centre. PIPSO says it had also provided some funding support toward the 2Samoas Trade Fair through its Business Development Fund.

The organizing committee of the 2Samoas Trade Fair agreed to donate the proceeds of the fashion show to a post-Tropical Cyclone Pam appeal, and in particular to assist business rehabilitation for micro & Small & Medium-size Enterprises (SMEs) in Vanuatu.

More information on PIPSO is online: www.pipso.org