Highlands Road

Has Made Lae

A Boom Town

LAE, as the undisputed gateway to the Highlands, has become a boom town over the last few months and the good times show no signs of slackening.

A PIM staff writer, in Lae in December, found that Lae land values had soared and that blocks of land near the business centre were either impossible to get or sell ing for $4,000 or $5,000 a small block.

Business, retail, commercial and construction were all running very high. Burns Philp are carrying out big extensions to their central retail store.

One businessman said a big Aus tralian firm had offered him $20,000 for two flats he was building for $15,000.

But it’s the truckers who are mak ing the fast, big money. A three day return trip to Mt. Hagen grosses between $3OO and $4OO.

Some individual truck drivers are doing this 10 times a month. Quite a lot of the truckdrivers arrived in the territory originally on contract jobs with big firms, saw the oppor tunities, broke their contracts and started on their own.

They bought cheap Japanese trucks, ran them into the ground after 30,000 miles, and bought others on hire purchase.

The boom has its bad side effects and the Lae Chamber of Commerce would like to see fewer truckies sleep ing in their trucks in Lae streets and tougher driving tests introduced for the growing force of local drivers.

One big firm uses 40 trucks and pays New Guineans $35 a week.

• The Highlands Highway begins at Lae and penetrates into the interior of New Guinea.