Our engagement with the Solomon Islands Government (SIG) remains critical to improving the business environment and influencing policy outcomes. In the past years, our engagement with SIG  have been loose and on an ad-hoc basis.

However, since July 2017, based on our priority goals, SICCI has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Solomon Islands Government (SIG) under which an Advisory Group has been established and issues of interest on behalf of the private sector are presented to the Government by SICCI. The MOU will continue to provide a structured platform for policy dialogue and engagement.

In 2017, the Chamber undertook a planned and reactive advocacy. The Secretariat focused on 5 key planned advocacy initiatives aside from responding to reactive advocacy. It was envisaged that these priorities were specific, measurable and achievable and also generally supported by other interest groups:

• Taxation – Our focus on tax is the Pay as You Earn (PAYE) threshold with the view to either increase the threshold and or reduce the rates for subsequent brackets. In 2017, SICCI in partnership with the Economic Association of Solomon Islands (EASI) had drawn up a position paper which was presented to the first Advisory Group Meeting in the first quarter for 2018.
• Infrastructure – Our focus to improve the country's infrastructure will begin with SI Ports on implementing and reducing the Ports Tariff charges and improvement in SIPA operations.
• Business health – Our focus in this area is to improve Government system in dealing with payments to Business Households and services providers.
• Agriculture – So far, the matter of the Rhinoceros Beetle (CRB) and its impact on the Coconut and Palm Oil Industry has seen significant progress. We have talked with and made the government aware about the danger of an untreated CRB spread. The issue has been taken up by the EID Department which SICCI's EID Officer is leading. Task-forces has been set up to deal with this critical matter.
• Young Entrepreneurs Council (YEC) – YEC is taking much progress since 2017. A Grant Signing Agreement was held between SICCI and the Ministry of Women, Youth and Children Affairs (MWYCA) in 2017. The work of YEC has been taken up by the Strategy Department. YEC was purposely set up to explore opportunities to assist and build capacity of young entrepreneurs to actively participate in the market.