THE Fiji Chamber of Commerce has called on the interim Government to explain how far the country has progressed with the production of ethanol.
"It has been one year now and nothing has come up on ethanol production," said chamber president Swani Maharaj.
Mr Maharaj was commenting on the continuing increases in fuel prices, which this week caused the interim Government to approve increases to bus and taxi fares.
Secretariat of the Applied Geoscience Commission manager, Paul Fairbairn said Fiji should actively ensure that energy and economic development are integrated and prioritised in national development plans.
Mr Fairbairn said they should provide a mechanism and platform for working towards addressing the critical issues of energy security, contributing to a sustainable future.
"A proactive approach to addressing energy security is important, more particularly from the aspect that if the global indications are correct, that a figure of $US100 ($F155) per barrel of oil may bring energy costs near the tipping point, causing global economic growth to falter, then the impacts are likely to be similar for Fiji," Mr Fairbairn said.
He said business and industries that had paid little attention to energy efficiency and conservation opportunities would see benefits to both themselves and the consumer.
"But instead any increase in the cost of energy continues to be recovered through incorporating this into product or service costs that in turn are met by the consumer through increased product cost," he said.
Mr Fairbairn said smaller business would be affected to a greater degree due to increased energy/ electricity costs because they generally did not have the capacity or resilience to absorb these increases.
Tacirua Transport Ltd owner Ajit Singh said since June 2005 the price of diesel per litre had increased by 43 per cent.
