Economically speaking, it looks

brighter in West Samoa

From an Apia correspontent The first week of September was marked by a number of favourable developments on the economic front in Western Samoa.

THE first toilet soap produced at Western Samoa Trust Estates’ ultra-modern soap factory at Vailele went on sale. A larger cake than the imported product, lathering well, with a choice of perfume, and cheaper, the new soap sold well.

The factory started producing laundry soap earlier this year and with toilet soap production now under way factory manager G. Werner said that he hoped the factory would soon be supplying all of Samoa’s soap requirements, which amounted to some SSI 12,000 last year.

In the same week the local tourist industry notched several records as the tourist boom started to roll.

The increasing stream of tourists, helped by brief visits from over 100 Ford dealers from Australia, and the Labour Day holiday in American Samoa, resulted in Polynesian Air lines making a record number of flights and carrying a record number of passengers over the first seven days of September, There were 40 flights, with 632 passengers, com pared with a normal weekly schedule of 14 flights.

Second DC4?

The spectacular increase in air line traffic led Polynesian’s com mercial manager I. Rumsey to predict that the airline would need a second DC4 next year and would be operating short haul jets within three years.

In line with increased tourism, the Handicrafts Corporation made record sales during the same week. Cor poration manager J. Hunter said that visitors were buying a wide variety of handicrafts. In addition to local sales the corporation now exports about $3,000 worth of handicrafts every month. The corporation is having no difficulty in getting village producers to satisfy the demand.

Following a brief visit to Hawaii in early September for talks with the Hawaii Visitors Bureau, Director of Economic Development A. Gera kas announced that with substantial

assistance from the bureau. Western Samoa would start a promotion cam paign in North America and Hawaii in November.

Eight seminars specifically pro moting Western Samoa will be held during November on the west coast of the United States and in Hawaii.

These will be attended by about 800 key travel agents.

Tourist drive

In addition a special “Report on Western Samoa” is being prepared for inclusion in three issues of Travel Weekly.

Sales kits on Samoa are to be mailed to 2,000 travel agents and 50,000 copies of a four-colour brochure on Samoa prepared with the help of the Hawaii Visitors

Bureau are to be printed for di; tribution to prospective visitors.

The first contingent of 90 U.l Peace Corps volunteers will arriv in Apia about October 10 accordin to head of Peace Corps operatior Western Samoa David Ziegenhagei Mr. Ziegenhagen visited the Peac Corps training centre on Molokai i Hawaii at the end of August an said on his return that the calibr of the group was unusually high an he was sure the volunteers woul make substantial contributions t Government programmes in Wester Samoa.

Peace Corps plans

Most of the group will be workin in rural areas as public health am sanitation aides. In addition to th rural health workers, all of whon have university degrees, the grou] includes five registered nurses, j

htematologist, a micro-biologist, j

dentist, a pharmacist, two engineers three architects, several economist and other highly qualified personnel Each volunteer will receive i monthly living allowance of abou $2O paid by the Peace Corps. The] will serve in Samoa for two years Another group, mainly to assist ii schools, will arrive early next year “The Peace Corps considers it! commitment of assistance in West ern Samoa to be long range,“ saic Mr. Zieeenhaeen. “We stand read} to orovide replacements for the firsi volunteers at the end of two yean and also to consider additional re- Quests from the Government at an\ time.”

Mr. Uttam S. Rana (above) will arrive in Port Moresby in late October as new director of the UN Information Centre in the territory. He succeeds Mr. Franklin Kozik, who goes to Bogota, Colombia.

Mr. Rana comes from Nepal and has worked as a journalist in Nepal and London.