Pacific Trade Invest
Pacific Trade Invest develops, grows, and promotes trade and investment in the Pacific Islands. PTI contributes to business growth in the Blue Pacific by facilitating commercial opportunities for export and investment-ready businesses across the region. This is achieved through the core service offerings of building business capacity and connecting businesses with importers and investors in global markets.
Pacific Trade Invest works to improve the livelihoods of Pacific peoples through the sustainable economic development of the Blue Pacific. This is in line with the Pacific Islands Forum vision of “a region of peace, harmony, security, social inclusion, and prosperity, so that all Pacific people can lead free, healthy and productive lives.”
PTI’s operating framework is also designed to align with and contribute to the United Nations Strategic Development Goals SDG 8, of decent work and economic growth.
Pacific Trade Invest has extensive market knowledge supported by deep networks in the Forum Island countries. PTI is the only regional agency tasked by Forum leaders to develop, grow, and promote industries and the private sector of the 16 Forum Island countries. As an agency of the Forum, PTI has a comparative advantage in having direct access to partnerships, technical agencies, and government officials in capitals, through official avenues and dialogues.
ADVISORY COUNCIL NOMINEE
James E. Harris
Honorary Consul/Special Advisor - Climate Change Adaptation
Vanuatu Honorary Consulate, UKA UK-Vanuatu dual national, James has a deep association with the Commonwealth having spent most of his life in Africa and Asia.
Now based between London and a satellite UAE office, James, in his role as Vanuatu’s Honorary Consul in London proactively seeks to generate opportunities for engagement between the Commonwealth and the wider Commonwealth Pacific community.
With more than twenty-five years’ experience in market-entry and business development in emerging markets, James is able to generate and foster commercial and government relationships globally – for which his representative office in the UAE acts as a valuable regional hub.
As the representative for PTI on CWEIC’s Advisory Council, James offers increased capacity to the Commonwealth as a direct link for Commonwealth member states in business development with the Pacific region, to complement and support PTI’s Geneva office.
In his capacity as Special Advisor to Vanuatu’s Minister of Climate Change, James is developing climate transition financing for the Commonwealth Pacific via a London-domiciled investment fund, inspired by Vanuatu’s global profile as a leader in climate change advocacy, on behalf of Small Island Developing States (SIDS).
James is supported in this representative role by his former Ministry of Defence colleague and Vice Honorary Consul Mark Jukes, who with his thirty-year career in international investment banking is a Special Advisor (Climate Finance) to Vanuatu’s Minister of Climate Change.
Together with PTI they will foster Commonwealth, Government and City of London relationships with the Pacific Islands.