Fiji’S Riches
p. 14 · Read in the full issue
Gold Production In 1938 Worth £700,000
The following table shows the trade of Fiji for the calendar year 1938.
The figures show also the 1937 totals, lor comparison. The comparison is mis leading, however. 1937 was practically a boom” year. The 1938 totals, while showing a slight swing-back compared with 1937, do nevertheless indicate a very healthy condition of trade.
Sugar has about held its own. Copra and trocas have felt severely the fall in world prices.
The most interesting development is the growth of gold production. The ef fect of this is to markedly increase the total value of Fiji’s exports, so that thev now are £860,000 in excess of imports— and Fiji’s oversea debt is negligible That excess does not remain in Fiji, of course —much of it goes to the shareholders of the Colonial Sugar Refining Co., and some, maybe, to the promoters of the Emperor and Loloma gold mines. Never theless, enough remains in Fiji to make it the best-endowed territory in the Pacific.
Exports
1937.
Quantity. Value.
Sugar (tons) .. 129,692 £1,388,681 Copra (tons) .. 30,001 407,354 Bananas (cases) 152,347 80,071 Gold (oz.) .. . 21,407 166,115 Molasses . .. 19,673 Trocas (tons) 144 12,273 Other 139,040 Total exports .. — £1.760.744 Total imports .. — £2,213.657 1938.
Value.
Quantity.
Sugar (tons) .134,415 £1,388,183 Copra (tons) , 33.475 270,915 Bananas (cases) 149,395 73,578 Gold (oz.) .. . . 89.354 701,252 Molasses — 22,881 Trocas (tons) . 140 7,731 Other — 120.469 Total exports .. — £1,675,437 Total imports . — £2,535,029