Foreign Capital

[?]Now Welcome" [?]n West Samoa

From R. F. Rankin, in Apia.

In near record time, the

amoan parliament passed four

ills of major importance to c o n o m i c development on October 15.

HHE four bills were the Enterprises L Incentives Bill, which provides ix and customs duty remission for new industries, the Samoa ompanies Order Amendment, which moves the restriction that all icmbers of companies incorporated i Samoa must be permanent re dents of the country, the Handi •afts Industry Bill, which sets up Samoan handicrafts corporation, hich will produce, buy and sell imoan handicrafts and endeavour to t certain standards, and the zonomic Development Bill, which ts up an Economic Development aard and an Economic Development epartment to plan and co-ordinate onomic development.

Despite opposition from the Bills ommittee, members of which emed to fear that the new develop ent department would usurp the >wers of departmental heads, it was sar from the debate in the House at the majority of members were txious to see faster implementation long talked-about development ans.

Jubilant

The Minister of Finance and anomic Development and Acting ime Minister, Mr. Fred Betham, is jubilant over his victory.

“I knew we had a fight on our nds, but there is no reason now ly, provided there is a co-ordinated ort throughout the whole country, ere cannot be a marked advance ent in development efforts,” he id, maintaining that in the next 10 years there could be a marked ange from the country’s present lancial position.

Work has been going on throughout e year among the development eretariat and various committees i development plans for the five ar period from 1966. These plans e expected to go before the board November.

“Then we will have to decide how uch finance can be provided locally

and how much will have to be sought overseas,” said Mr. Betham.

He anticipates about £1,000,000 of local finance will be spent by the Samoan Government over the five years. Much more will have to come from outside.

With the new incentives offered and restrictions removed, the Govern ment expects considerable activity from now on by private investors from overseas. Mr. Betham cited the hotel industry, fish canning and the timber industry as three fields in which overseas interest had been ex pressed.

“They were waiting for the pas sage of these bills before they took any action,” said Mr. Betham.

He said that Government policy was to encourage a majority of local shareholders in new companies but there were probably a number of enterprises which would be of benefit economically to the country but for which there was not enough local capital available.

“Full and adequate development will be impossible without outside aid and investment,” said Mr.

Betham. • See criticism of copra industry, p. 60.