Niue's Premier, Toke Talagi, says the presence of the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, at this year's Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting shows how important she believes the region is.
Secretary Clinton will arrive on Friday to attend the post-Forum dialogue with leaders.
Toke Talagi says the Pacific needs to ask her for what it wants, for example, for help from the military for fisheries surveillance.
"Because they are the only large enough country with assets to enable us to do that. To stop illegal fishing. To enable us to manage our fisheries resources as well as we can. I also understand that they can in fact assist us with our social developments - they are building a hospital in Samoa for example."
Toke Talagi says he will be lobbying Secretary Clinton to see if more Pacific island countries can be included in the APEC group, given Papua New Guinea is the only current member.
