A new pro-Bitcoin Prime Minister has taken office in the Fiji islands in the Pacific. The new leader, Sitiveni Rabuka, took office in Fiji on December 24.
Lord Fusitu’a, a Tongan nobleman and former Tongan member of parliament, took to Twitter to share the news from his neighboring nation. Fusitu’a stated that he had explained to Rabuka step by step “how Fiji can make Bitcoin legal tender like Tonga”, and that there could be two “Pacific legal tender bills in 2023.”
A new pro#Bitcoin friendly Prime Minister in the South Pacific.â˜€ï¸ ï¸
Fiji’s newly elected Prime Minister @slrabuka.
Let’s go 2 for 2 – BTC Legal Tender Bills for the Pacific in 2023
— Lord Fusitu’a (@LordFusitua) December 29, 2022
Lord Fusitu’a explained to Cointelegraph in Twitter messages that “the new Prime Minister is definitely pro-Bitcoin.”
“He asked to meet with me, which we’ve done via Zoom meetings since last year, to walk him through step-by-step how he could adopt Bitcoin as legal tender.”
Tonga’s timetable for introducing Bitcoin as legal tender is public and could be approved as early as February 2023. Fiji faces similar economic and development challenges to Tonga due to its location and history. However, with almost 900,000 inhabitants, Fiji’s population is more than nine times that of Tonga.
Bitcoin’s potential to enhance financial inclusion in Fiji is especially significant given the country’s geography and economic situation. Located in the Pacific Ocean, Fiji is made up of more than 330 islands. It is classified as a middle-income country, but it still faces significant development challenges, such as high poverty rates, limited access to financial services, and energy dependence on fossil fuels.
In fact, according to the World Bank, the remittances that Fiji receives represent more than 11% of its GDP. Furthermore, although Fiji’s National Financial Inclusion Strategy reports strong growth in financial inclusion in recent years, only half of the female population has access to a bank account. Bitcoin could serve as a tool to improve remittances and bank the unbanked, following the example of El Salvador.
Additionally, Fiji could experiment with mining Bitcoin on volcanic islands. Fusitu’a continued:
“Like Tonga, how to do nationalized Bitcoin mining, specifically how were we going to do volcanic geothermal mining so that they could both do the same thing, but also make use of their massive hydropower and other surplus renewable energy that they have, that we don’t.”
Fiji’s 20-year National Development Plan calls for all power on the islands to be generated from renewable sources by 2030. The country needs an additional 120 MW of renewable power to meet this target. Bitcoin mining could be the lever that unlocks the benefits of renewable energy.
Fiji’s approach to Bitcoin contrasts with that of other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, such as Vanuatu, which have taken a more cautious stance towards cryptocurrencies. Until the use of cryptocurrencies was banned in 2021, the Satoshi Island crypto project seemed to clear the way for the adoption of digital assets.
Overall, the election of a pro-Bitcoin prime minister in Fiji is progress. It remains to be seen how the support will translate into concrete policies, but the potential of Bitcoin to improve financial inclusion in Fiji is significant.
A longtime Cointelegraph contributor, Lord Fusitu’a, explained that Bitcoin could help with GDP remittances by undermining reliance on expensive money transfer services like Western Union; “Replace commercial retail banking with BTC custody of a citizen’s finances in his pocket in a phone/hardware wallet instead of a commercial bank.”
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