The Samoa Chamber of Commerce and the Pacific Business Network have signed an agreement to promote locally-owned businesses.

Speaking at the Samoa Chamber of Commerce office yesterday, Pacific Business Network (P.B.N.) Chairman, Tuala Tagaloa Tusani, said the partnership is important as it will enable employers to generate more revenue and over the long-term period create more jobs.

“Part of what we do is we will promote the businesses here in Samoa, through our database and our online systems, and we are confident that with that support the businesses here will do well,” he said.

“The more money people make here means the employers will have more money to hire more people and to hire more people it is better for the villagers which serves our churches."

“And that is why this is important it’s because then we don’t have to ask our overseas family all the time for money,” he said.

Tuala said Samoans rely on their families abroad for money so the partnership between them and the Samoa Chamber of Commerce will have to change.

“At some point we have to rely on ourselves in terms of buying products from ourselves and this goes to our people overseas too."

 “We have to support our own businesses overseas with their shops there, it doesn’t matter what they are doing over there, we have to buy from them and support them."

“Because that money that comes back to the companies over here means it helps pay for our employees and so we hire our own people,” he added.

According to the Samoa Chamber of Commerce C.E.O., Lemauga Hobart Vaai, there are eight companies dealing directly through the Pacific Business network.

He also said that the aim of this is to increase more products and make it more inclusive.

“There is no secret that the largest population of the Samoan people are living in New Zealand and Australia,d and we want to create that network and that place where we could connect our members directly into our communities in New Zealand."

“You see here a couple of ranges of our products we are already doing business in New Zealand but we want to increase that and we want to give more opportunities for our people to trade."

“So having all these is very important for us to have those connections with our community overseas and we also want to make it inclusive not only for our businesses here in the town area but also our businesses in the rural areas as well."

“So everybody is included in this process,” he added.

Speaking about criteria, Lemauga said the local companies already have linkages with the network site.

“They already had direct linkages in businesses in New Zealand and they already had their own networks. I think the difference here is basically we want to open the door knob to bring everybody else into the playing field. So there are some products here that we understand P.B.N. isn’t aware of but we want to connect them to the network overseas."

“We want to make sure everybody is included in the program and we are thankful for P.B.N. for opening those doors to us and you also have to know that these guys are regional so they have worked in Tonga and are moving to Fiji so we want to be a part of that as well,” he added.