The official economic position of the Pacific Islands Forum is centred around regional economic integration, which is essentially a commitment to reduce and eventually remove tariffs and barriers in order to allow for the free trade of goods from nation state to nation state (Mogan, 2014). With the Pacific Islands Forum’s nations having a population of only 39 million, understandably the total gross domestic profit (GDP) of the PIFs members is not overly large, especially in comparison to other Global inter and supranational organisations. The GDP of the Pacific islands Forum currently sits at US $1.6 trillion. This number pales in comparison to even other singular sovereign states. For example, the US alone has a GDP of over US $18.57 trillion, China’s GDP is currently US $11.2 trillion and India has a GDP of US $2.02 trillion. But it can be argued that GDP is not an overly accurate measure of a country’s (or multiple countries’) economic prosperity. A country like New Caledonia, for example boasts a GDP of only US $10234m, however when we assess their GDP per capita, it becomes evident that they have the second highest GDP per capita, behind only Australia (as show in table 3.2) Additionally, the smaller ‘micro-states’ of the Pacific Islands Forum (such as Nauru, Niue and Tuvalu), are significantly restricted in international trade, even if they were to have preferential access to destination markets. The same can be said for Kiribati, as it is a far more remote atoll state. Conversely, larger states with a stronger geographical location (such as Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and the Solomon Islands are able to capitalise off the exportation of goods in order to generate much higher GDP (Hezel, 2012). 
Source: Trading Economics - http://www.tradingeconomics.com
Source: Trading Economics - http://www.tradingeconomics.com
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