The Asian Development Bank has set up a South Pacific Sub-Regional Office in Suva to provide assistance to Fiji, Cook Islands, Tonga, Samoa and Tuvalu.
Until now, the ADB has been providing loans and technical assistance from its Manila headquarters.
Among the first loans for Fiji from the new office will be one of 25-million US dollars to provide alternative livelihoods for thousands of cane farmers, mill workers and others who will be displaced by the restructure of the collapsing sugar industry.
Another loan of 45-million US dollars will be for the upgrading of the water supplies in the Suva-Nausori corridor where the population is soaring. END
