Solomon Islands

The Pacific Islands Forum is an inter-governmental organization that aims to enhance cooperation between the independent countries of the Pacific... Ocean. It was founded in 1971 as the South Pacific Forum. In 1999, the name was changed; Pacific Islands Forum is more inclusive of the Forum's Oceania-spanning membership of both north and south Pacific island countries and Australia. It is an official observer at the United Nations. The mission of Pacific Islands Forum is “to work in support of Forum member governments, to enhance the economic and social well-being of the people of the South Pacific by fostering cooperation between governments and between international agencies, and by representing the interests of Forum members in ways agreed by the Forum”. Its decisions are implemented by the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat , which grew out of the South Pacific Bureau for Economic Co-operation . As well as its role in harmonising regional positions on various political and policy issues, the Forum Secretariat has technical programmes in economic development, transport and trade.
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Template:Country data Secretariat of the Pacific Community The Secretariat of the Pacific Community, or SPC , is a regional intergovernmental... organisation whose membership includes both nations and territories. It aims to "develop the technical, professional, scientific, research, planning and management capability of Pacific Island people and directly provide information and advice, to enable them to make informed decisions about their future development and well-being." The SPC headquarters is in Nouméa, New Caledonia. SPC was founded in 1947 as the South Pacific Commission by six developed countries with an interest in the region: For reasons either of reduced development interest in the Pacific Islands region or a desire to concentrate assistance in other areas of greater poverty, two founding members have since withdrawn from the SPC: the Netherlands and the United Kingdom . SPC's founding charter is the Canberra Agreement. In the aftermath of World War II, the six colonial powers which created the SPC, arguably intended it to secure Western political and military interests in the postwar Pacific.
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The Asian Development Bank is a regional development bank established on 22 August 1966 to facilitate economic development of countries in Asia. The... bank admits the members of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and non-regional developed countries. From 31 members at its establishment, ADB now has 67 members - of which 48 are from within Asia and the Pacific and 19 outside. ADB was modeled closely on the World Bank, and has a similar weighted voting system where votes are distributed in proportion with member's capital subscriptions. At present, both the United States and Japan hold 552,210 shares, the largest proportion of shares at 12.756% each. China holds 228,000 shares , India holds 224,010 shares , the 2nd and 3rd largest proportion of shares respectively. The highest policy-making body of the bank is the Board of Governors composed of one representative from each member state. The Board of Governors, in turn, elect among themselves the 12 members of the Board of Directors and their deputy.
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The South Pacific Regional Trade and Economic Co-operation Agreement is a nonreciprocal trade agreement in which Australia and New Zealand offer... duty-free and unrestricted access for specified products originating from the developing island member countries of the Pacific Islands Forum. Signed in 1981 and subject to Rules of Origin regulations, the agreement was designed to address the unequal trade relationships between the two groups. The textiles, clothing and footwear industry has been a major beneficiary of SPARTECA through the preferential access to Australian and New Zealand markets. The local Textiles, Clothing and Footwear industry has grown over the last 10 years and is now one of the major industries in Fiji. In 1997 the TCF industry accounted for 26% of Fiji’s total domestic exports; it contributed to some 3.5% of GDP and provided employment for about 18,000 people that account for 16% of those in total paid employment.
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Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New... Guinea and numerous offshore islands . It is located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, in a region defined since the early 19th century as Melanesia. The capital is Port Moresby. Papua New Guinea is one of the most culturally diverse countries on Earth. According to recent data, 841 different languages are listed for the country, although 11 of these have no known living speakers. . There may be at least as many traditional societies,out of a population of about 6.2 million. It is also one of the most rural, as only 18% of its people live in urban centres. The country is one of the world's least explored, culturally and geographically, and many undiscovered species of plants and animals are thought to exist in the interior of Papua New Guinea.
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Vanuatu vah-noo-AH-too or /vænˈwɑːtuː/ van-WAH-too, officially the Republic of Vanuatu , is an island nation located in the... South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is some 1,750 kilometres east of northern Australia, 500 kilometres northeast of New Caledonia, west of Fiji, and southeast of the Solomon Islands, near New Guinea. Vanuatu was first inhabited by Melanesian people. The first Europeans to visit the islands were the members of a Spanish expedition led by Portuguese navigator Fernandes de Queirós who arrived in Espiritu Santo in 1605. In the 1880s France and the United Kingdom claimed parts of the country, and in 1906 they agreed on a framework for jointly managing the archipelago as the New Hebrides through a British–French Condominium. An independence movement arose in the 1970s, and the Republic of Vanuatu was created in 1980. The nation's name was derived from the word vanua , which occurs in several Austronesian languages, and the word tu .
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The Federated States of Micronesia is an independent, sovereign island nation, made up of four states from west to east: Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei and... Kosrae. It comprises approximately 607 islands with c. 700 km of area in the Western Pacific Ocean spread over almost 2,700 km longitudinally just north of the equator, some 4,000 km southwest of the main islands of Hawaii and about 2,900 km north of eastern Australia, lying northeast of New Guinea, south of Guam and the Marianas, west of Nauru and the Marshalls, and east of Palau and the Philippines. While the FSM's total land area is quite small, amounting to approximately 702 km , it occupies more than 2,600,000 km of the Pacific Ocean. The capital is Palikir, located on Pohnpei island, the largest city being Weno, part of Chuuk. Each of its four states is centered around one or more main high islands, and all but Kosrae include numerous outlying atolls.
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