Japanese Co. Leases 214 Sq.
p. 26 · Read in the full issue
Miles in Dutch N. Guinea
THE Government of Dutch East Indies has granted a lease to a Japanese com pany, the Nanyo Kohatsu Kaisha (South Seas Development Co.) of 137,000 acres (214 square miles) of land at Geelvink Bay, Dutch New Guinea, for cotton grow ing, The concession is for five years, one tenth of what the Japanese asked.
Founded primarily for the exploitation of natural and industrial resources in the South Seas, the company—capitalised at 20 million yen (approx. £1,000,000) —has for the past three years been experimenting in cotton growing, and has now decided that it should start on a commercial basis.
The company intends to produce 20,000 bales of long staple cotton a year.
Geelvink Bay, on the north coast, is three degrees south of the equator, about 700 miles north of Darwin. This is only half the distance from Australia of the nearest Japanese enterprise, which is at Davao, in the south of the Philippines, about eight degrees north of the equator.