29 May 2003

MSG summit in Solomon Islands now scheduled for August

10:41 am on 29 May 2003

The Solomon Islands government says it will hold the summit of the Melanesian Spearhead Group in Gizo in the first week of August although the exact date is yet to be announced.

A spokesman says at a recent summit of Pacific leaders in Japan the leaders agreed that the previous date of July was inconvenient.

He says the Gizo summit will be preceded by trade talks involving officials from the MSG countries, which include Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Fiji and New Caledonia.

The Gizo meeting will come before the annual Pacific Islands Forum in New Zealand in mid-August and is to follow another Pacific summit called by the French Polynesian government for tentatively the end of July.