BSP Fiji’s Thrive business development program has graduated more than 200 entrepreneurs since it launched in March 2023, after its newest cohort, 27 business owners from Sigatoka, finished months of mentoring and workshops. Seventeen of those 27 businesses are women owned, and the group spans tourism, hospitality, retail, agribusiness, manufacturing, handicrafts, bakery operations and sawmilling.
The number matters because of what sits on the other side of it. Fiji’s micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) contribute only around 18% of GDP, roughly half the 40% average across other emerging economies, and researchers have pegged the country’s financing gap at close to FJ$2.2 billion. Thrive can teach a business plan and build a network. It cannot, on its own, close that gap.
Sigatoka’s 27 Push Fiji Thrive Past 200 Graduates
The Sigatoka graduates came from eight distinct trades:
- Tourism
- Hospitality
- Retail
- Agribusiness
- Manufacturing
- Handicrafts
- Bakery operations
- Sawmilling
Maikash Ali, BSP’s relieving country head for Fiji, marked the milestone in a recent statement.
Together with our partner, Australian Business Volunteers, we are proud to support these resilient entrepreneurs who are solving real challenges, creating opportunities and driving economic activity in their communities.
That is Ali speaking about the partnership with Australian Business Volunteers (ABV), a not-for-profit international development organisation that supplies the mentors. Seventeen of 27 women owned businesses in Sigatoka keeps pace with the roughly two thirds women led rate the program held as it approached its hundredth graduate in 2025.
Ravi Chand, Australian Business Volunteers’ senior program manager in Fiji, said the coaching model is built to outlast the workshops themselves. “Our Skilled Business Professionals work alongside entrepreneurs to solve real business challenges using practical experience and tailored advice,” Chand said. “Participants leave with stronger business skills, greater confidence and valuable networks that continue long after the workshops have finished.”
The Sigatoka ceremony pushed Thrive’s cumulative graduate count past 200 for the first time since BSP and ABV launched the program in March 2023.
How a Papua New Guinea Pilot Became Fiji’s Biggest MSME Bet
Fiji Thrive did not start in Fiji. Bank South Pacific and ABV adapted it from a co-designed program for Fiji’s locally owned firms, itself a localized version of a scheme the two organisations first ran in Papua New Guinea under a different name, Your Enterprise Scheme, or YES GROW.
The wider BSP and ABV SME Development Program is now active across Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, with plans to reach Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. In Papua New Guinea alone, 318 SME entrepreneurs have gone through the training over six years. Haroon Ali, BSP’s country head at the time of an earlier Fiji cohort, said the bank was “delighted to continue this program with Australian Business Volunteers.”
Fiji’s own timeline shows how fast the program scaled once it took hold locally.
- March 2023: Fiji THRIVE launches with a first cohort of 25 entrepreneurs across the Central Division, backed by BSP and the British High Commission.
- August 2024: The program expands into Fiji’s Northern Division.
- April 2025: Cumulative graduates near 100 MSMEs, about two thirds women led, with Investment Fiji and Business Assistance Fiji joining as delivery partners.
- 2026: The Sigatoka cohort of 27 pushes the total past 200 graduates, and Thrive resumes next in Suva.
The Minister Who Called Finance the Missing Piece
At the program’s 2023 launch, Fiji’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade, Cooperatives, SMEs and Communications, Manoa Kamikamica, welcomed Thrive but named the harder problem in the same breath.
“Access to finance is a key challenge for many MSMEs,” Kamikamica said. “Therefore, it is fitting to see a financial institution taking a lead role in developing these MSMEs through such initiatives which will ultimately build them to access finance for their business.”
BSP has framed Thrive as aligned with Fiji’s National Financial Inclusion Strategy 2022 to 2030, the government’s broader roadmap for getting banking and credit to households and small firms the formal system has historically skipped over. That framing sets up the harder question: does finishing Thrive actually change how a lender sees an applicant, or just how the applicant sees themselves?
Fiji’s FJ$2.2 Billion Financing Gap Hasn’t Closed
Reserve Bank of Fiji (RBF) Governor Ariff Ali has put a number on the shortfall Thrive graduates walk into. MSMEs contribute about 18% of Fiji’s GDP, he said, against a 40% average across other emerging markets. Researchers at Griffith University have separately put Fiji’s MSME financing gap near FJ$2.2 billion, citing work by the Market Development Facility. In the World Bank’s last Doing Business rankings before that survey was retired in 2021, Fiji sat 165th of 190 economies for getting credit.
Graduating from Thrive does not erase those numbers. It hands a newly confident business owner back into a lending market that still looks like this:
| Lender or Scheme | Headline Terms | Where It Falls Short |
|---|---|---|
| Fiji Development Bank, Women Entrepreneurs Loan | 12% per year over 3 to 5 years | Needs 3 years of MSME registration and 12 months of trading history |
| Westpac Fiji, Women Entrepreneurs Loan | Standard underwriting and KYC checks apply | No preferential rate published; sized to RBF’s own turnover bands |
| RBF MSME Credit Guarantee Scheme | Government shares default risk with commercial lenders | National pool reached just FJ$9 million after its last top up |
| ADB and Merchant Finance | New 2026 loan and grant package | Aimed specifically at women owned and led SMEs, not yet nationwide |
Every row on that table describes a lender trying to widen the door. None of them describe a door that is fully open yet.
Every Lender in Fiji Wants the Same Small Business
BSP is not the only institution circling Fiji’s underserved small businesses. The Reserve Bank of Fiji has run a state backed credit guarantee scheme since 2012, when the government seeded it with $2.5 million before raising the pool to a $4 million allocation the following year, later reaching $9 million after a COVID era top up. The scheme shares default risk with commercial banks and licensed credit institutions, including BSP’s own finance arm, but the total pool remains small next to a FJ$2.2 billion gap.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) moved on the same borrowers this year. ADB and Merchant Finance, a Fiji based lender, signed loan and grant agreements aimed at women owned Fijian SMEs, a fresh capital injection separate from anything BSP or ABV run. Fiji’s government has also approved an Access to Business Funding Act, opening crowdfunding, peer to peer lending and small offers regimes that did not exist before.
Ask the people involved what actually fixes Fiji’s small business gap, and the answers diverge.
- BSP and ABV treat the constraint as capability. Stronger business skills and networks come first, and financing follows once a business can show a credible plan.
- Deputy Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica has called finance access itself the more direct barrier facing Fiji’s MSMEs, even while praising Thrive.
- Reserve Bank Governor Ariff Ali has pointed to law and market structure, backing the new funding act to open alternative capital rather than leaning on mentoring alone.
Suva Is Next for Fiji’s Newest Entrepreneurs
Thrive’s next stop is Suva, where BSP and ABV say a new cohort will begin the same cycle of coaching, workshops and mentoring that carried Sigatoka’s 27 through 2026. Ali said BSP and ABV remain committed to expanding the program and equipping more Fijians with the skills and confidence to build stronger businesses.
Fiji’s tally already sits close to two thirds of Papua New Guinea’s six year total, reached in roughly half the time. That pace says something about local demand for the program itself. Whether Fiji’s credit market keeps up is a separate question, and one BSP’s mentors cannot answer alone.
BSP and ABV have not yet said how many entrepreneurs the Suva cohort will include.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Does Fiji THRIVE Stand For?
Fiji THRIVE is short for Together, Helping to build a Resilient, Inclusive and Vibrant Economy, the name BSP and Australian Business Volunteers gave the program when they adapted it for Fiji’s market from an earlier Papua New Guinea scheme.
Is BSP’s Thrive Program Free for Entrepreneurs?
Yes. Coaching comes at no direct cost to participants. Australian Business Volunteers supplies the mentors, while BSP funded the program’s 2023 launch alongside the British High Commission.
How Long Does the Thrive Mentoring Program Run?
Each cohort’s structured coaching and mentoring phase runs about six months, inside a program BSP and ABV describe overall as a twelve month development journey from enrollment through follow up support.
What Counts as an MSME Under Fiji’s Rules?
Fiji generally classifies a micro enterprise as one with turnover or assets under F$50,000, and a small enterprise as between F$50,000 and F$300,000, thresholds commercial lenders use to decide which loan products apply.
Does Graduating From Thrive Guarantee a Business Loan?
No. Graduation builds a business plan, financial records and a network, but lenders including Westpac Fiji still apply normal underwriting and Know Your Customer checks to every application, mentoring certificate or not.
