Fiji's Business Process Outsourcing Sector — Building a Skills-Export Industry Beyond Tourism

Fiji connected to the Southern Cross submarine fibre-optic cable in 2000, ahead of most neighbouring Pacific states, and combined that early connectivity with a 96% literacy rate and an English-fluent workforce to build an outsourcing sector in and around Suva, diversifying a small island economy of under one million people beyond tourism and agriculture.

The sector is coordinated by the industry body Outsource Fiji with government trade-promotion agencies, which have invested in ICT infrastructure resilience and workforce skills-accreditation programmes; major employer Centrecom alone runs about 1,000 staff across four Fiji sites. Fijian trade delegations have promoted the sector at international events such as LeadsCon in the United States.

Industry estimates put current sector employment at roughly 9,000 workers and annual economic contribution at about F$280 million. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when many competing hubs were disrupted, Fiji's operations reportedly kept running, reinforcing its pitch as a reliable, time-zone-advantaged alternative.

The government and Outsource Fiji have set a public target of scaling to 25,000 jobs by around 2030, but the figures come from the industry association and trade press rather than an audited national statistics source, and reaching the target depends on continuing to compete against much larger, lower-cost hubs such as the Philippines and India.