The two-day Pacific Islands Investment Forum (PIIF) opened on Tuesday serving as a platform for stakeholders across the Pacific Islands to gather, share insights, and work together on investment opportunities that can drive sustainable growth in the region.

Together, the PIIF industry group of 20 Superannuation, Provident, Trust, and Sovereign Funds in 12 countries across the Pacific region oversee assets of around $100 billion.   

The PIIF represent the savings and monetary welfare of over 1.6 million members — providing a platform for Collaboration, Education, and Co-Investing to improve financial security for Pacific people.

In his welcoming address, Prime Minister Mark Brown said Government is supportive of some of the initiatives that the Cook Islands National Superannuation Fund (CINSF) will be proposing, it sometimes means new things, new ideas and maybe a different way of doing things.

“We’re no stranger to doing that, in our journey to high income status we have pioneered a number of initiatives particularly with our key financier the Asia Development Bank over the years restructuring debt, coming up with new ways with how to manage our debt…”

Brown said there are investments the Cooks will need, the concessional borrowing from the likes of the Asia Development Bank and others where the returns come back over much a long period of time – “not financial returns, these are economic and social returns.”

With the closure of our borders in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Brown said the country lost close to 40% of our GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in that two year period (2020 – 2022).

To help prop up the economy, government paid out the wage subsidy for a year for all workers and also helped businesses to stay afloat.

Banks put the freeze on repayments and government supported the payments of interest on all loans right across the board as a way to ensure that businesses were not folding or were not made bankrupt

“The expectation was that we would be reopening and we wanted to make sure that everyone would be able to hit the ground running and that we didn’t lose any of our businesses that we had,” said Brown.

“This year, two years later we have not only regained our ground to where we were in 2020 before the closure but we have exceeded that with our GDP exceeding 600 million dollars for the first time.”

The Cook Islands National Superannuation Fund (CINSF) is close to 25 years since its establishment.

Heinz Matysik joined the CINSF Board in 2014, when CINSF had $95 million in assets under management.

As CINSF Chair, in his welcoming address Matysik said, “Over the last 10 years, this has grown nearly three times in size to over $270 million.”

He said the investment the fund has made in improving governance has meant that our fund members have a lot of confidence in the fund and its ability to manage members’ money.

“The Fund’s commitment to ensuring the best returns for members means we are committed and open to exploring new investment opportunities including regional opportunities that might be accessible through the Pacific Islands Investment Forum,” Matysik said.

As the CINSF face an increasingly challenging global investment environment, the Board and Management have become more focused on what regional investment opportunities might be available.

Matysik said a key part of looking at regional opportunities is their ability to leverage local knowledge in assessing potential investment proposals.

“For CINSF, the Management team has played a key role in finding potential investments both locally and further abroad in the region and making an initial evaluation to see if these warrant further exploration.

“While to date this has not resulted in any investment, the CINSF Board remains committed to the process and each proposal has taught us some valuable lessons,” Matysik said.

According to Matysik, CINSF’s current strategy that has been developing over the last two years, is to bed down a solid administration and investment framework.

This has resulted in CINSF investing heavily in a new administration platform which is now administered in-house.

According to the CINSF this forum provides an opportunity for discussions and presentations on PIIF Member Fund analysis, fiduciary practices, and investment insights.

The forum closed yesterday after the annual meeting, at Edgewater Resort.