A statement from the Los Angeles-based company announcing the decision did not say whether it was shutting down permanently in Fiji. It said it was closing its facility there, cancelling orders from suppliers and putting on hold several construction contracts in the country—but that it wanted to keep operating in Fiji, where it taps an aquifer deep underground, and was willing to hold discussions with the government about that.
Fiji Water LLC, part of billionaire Stewart Resnick’s closely held Roll International Corp., produces Fiji Water – the biggest selling premium bottled water in the US market after Danone SA’s Evian.
The military-appointed Fiji government announced on 26 November that it would raise the tax applicable to Fiji Water to F$0.15 a litre from one-third of a cent, chief operating officer John Cochrane said in an e-mailed statement. That compares with tax of one tenth of a cent on smaller producers, the company said. The measure “sends a clear and unmistakable message to businesses operating in Fiji or looking to invest there: the country is increasingly unstable, and is becoming a very risky place in which to invest,” Fiji Water said in the statement.
The tax increase comes after prime minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama, who seized power in a December 2006 bloodless coup, ordered Fiji Water’s Director of External Affairs David Roth to leave the country on 22 November for “interfering in the domestic affairs and governance of Fiji,” according to a statement on the government’s website.
“Fiji Water remains willing to work through this issue with the Fiji government, as it would be our preference to keep operating in Fiji,” the company said.
The company, which said it generates more than F$130m ($70.4m) in export revenue annually, employs almost 400 workers at its plant in Fiji.
Source: Fiji Water/Wall Street Journal/FoodBev/Australian Network News
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