seventh member

Nauru will be seventh member of SPC

The Republic of Nauru is con fident that it will be admitted to the South Pacific Commission in October as a full member. The Republic will thus become the seventh member of the SPC and will be the second territory, after Western Samoa, to have succeeded to membership after having passed through a period of colonial rule.

Nauru made its application for membership early this year and expects to have it accepted at a meeting of the SPC to begin in Noumea on October 2. President Hammer Deßoburt will attend that meeting.

Nauru will probably provide one per cent, of the annual SPC budget, as does Western Samoa.

After attaining membership Nauru intends to play it by ear. President Deßoburt has no particular axes to grind on the commission, although he has been a supporter of Ratu K.

K. T. Mara’s insistence on a greater say in SPC affairs by the Pacific territories themselves, rather than the metropolitan powers.

Ratu Mara will be chairman of this year’s conference, at which there will be delegates from all SPC terri tories.

Phosphate deal

President Deßoburt was in Mel bourne in September, completing a contract with Mitsubishi Ltd. of Japan to supply 300,000 tons of phosphate to Japan during the current financial year, at $l4 a ton —s3 better than is being paid by the BPC for two million tons a year.

This is the first phosphate sold by the Nauruans on the world market and obviously means that after 1970 the price to the BPC (Australia and NZ) will be higher.

Also in September the Nauruans reached agreement with the BPC on the price of BPC assets to be taken over by the Nauru Phosphate Corporation on July 1, 1970. The price is $21,053,216, which is $750,000 lower than the price asked by the BPC.

Nauru now has a bank—the Bank of New South Wales—which will set up a branch in the republic “at an early date”.