Diary
pp. 34-35 · Read in the full issue
New Caledonia Diary
With
Helen Rousseau
In Noumea
As New Caledonia’s main indus try, the nickel expansion pro gramme, fell into deeper difficulties in June, a sudden injection of new life was given to the island’s second, almost extinct industry, tourism.
The suspense which had accu mulated over the delay in launch ing Cofimpac nickel project sent a Territorial Assembly mission pleading to Paris throughout the month of June. Urging the des patch of the mission, Caledonian deputy for the French National Assembly, Melanesian Rock Pidjot, told the Noumea Assembly: “No one will deny that there currently exists among the population a real malaise, which is due to the delay, if not the uncertainty over the in stallation of this company (Cofim pac) or others concerned with the development of the nickel industry in New Caledonia”.
The installation of a second nickel company on the island, apart from the present monopolist Societe Le Nickel, was promised by General Pierre Billotte, then Minister for Territories, when he came to open the South Pacific Games in Noumea, December, 1966.
It is now a long time since those Games, and still the “second com pany” (including Canadian Inco) hasn’t been able to get off the ground, since the composition of the French shareholding has not been settled.
While the Caledonian politicians
pleaded in Paris, the French Gov ernment had been pleading in Tokyo, trying to arrange Japanese finance for the new smelter the Societe Le Nickel (SLN) wants to build at Poum. The Japanese seem in no hurry to help the Poum pro ject along and to make matters wprse, Tokyo had indicated it would be buying less nickel ore from New Caledonia this year, needing only 3.5 million tons. This followed Governor Louis Verger’s promise to the Caledonian mine operators that Paris is prepared to raise last year’s export quota (4.3 million tons) by 400,000 tons.
As a result of the recent Tokyo talks, it seems the Japanese are prepared not to cut their purchases from the island. Meanwhile, for the first five months of this year, 1,728,152 tons of ore at 2.45 per cent, nickel has been shipped out to Japan, a slight increase over the same period of 1970.
Ferro-nickel exported by the SLN during the same five months of this year totalled 15,515 tons, which is approximately 50 per cent, more than for the corres ponding period of last year. The export of nickel matte rose slightly to 6,742 tons.
A breathing space in the rush towards realising the promised new nickel projects gave Caledonians a chance to reflect upon a long neglected second industry for the island, tourism.
The recent completion of exten
sions at the SLN smelters in Noumea and the declining interest in other nickel projects led to an exodus of some of the businessmen occupying over 50 per cent, of Noumea’s hotels. In addition, the 45-room Mocambo is now open at the Baie des Citrons, which means the capital now has more space for visitors. One hotel problem being the availability of suitable staff, the Mocambo has hired six Fijian girls and two men, the latter in the bar.
Major development in the tour ist industry, however, has been the arrival of the first bulldozers on the site to prepare for the 250room extensions at the Chateau Royal. Once the waterfront land is cleared, at Anse Vata beach, the actual construction work is ex pected to begin about September.
The new wing should then be open by the end of 1973, thus bringing Chateau Royal accommodation to 330 rooms.
The beginning of this project coincides with a Paris announce ment from the Department of Overseas Territories, permitting in teresting incentive payments of up to 10 per cent, for approved in vestment in the tourist industry, provided the investment exceeds SUS 145,000 and is begun before the end of 1973. For those inter ested, there are further details of this bonus at the New Caledonian Office du Tourisme.
Director of the Tourist Office, Mr. Bruno Tabuteau, was among
delegates to the conference of the Melanesian Tourist Federation, early June, in Vila, New Hebrides.
Chairman of the Federation is Don Barrett of Papua New Guinea, with Joe Mulders, of Vila, acting as secretary. General aim of the federation is to promote the chain of Melanesian islands from New Caledonia north to Papua New Guinea, travelling via the New Hebrides and Solomons.
Representatives of six interna tional airlines attended the meet ing which recommended, among other things, that the four member island groups do not participate in the joint “South Sea Islands” tour ist promotion suggested by Fiji last September (at the 10th South Paci fic Conference in Suva). The Mela nesian travel leaders felt that com bining with Polynesian islands from the other side of the Pacific was not really going to help their own individual image and that therefore they would be more effective, on their modest budget, continuing to publicise their four island groups as one separate unit.
A general survey of South Paci fic tourist potential and ways of developing it was begun in June by a team of three Americans from the University of Hawaii, spon sored by the UNDP, in co-opera tion with the SPC. In New Cale donia, the team mentioned that the existence of pollution is a factor which may eventually wipe some places off the tourist map.
It is interesting to note that in Noumea tests made since the instal lation of extra electric furnaces at the town’s nickel smelters have in dicated that red nickel dust colon residents’ window ledges contains no less than 2.4 per cent, nickel. At SUSI 6 per ton, the ob noxious dust may yet have a com mercial value for enterprising housewives.
A young Noumea artist, Mrs.
Gemmanick Harbulot, has just shipped out a batch of 129 paint ings, which represent over two years’ work and are destined for an exhibition in Tokyo. Many of the oils have been inspired by the years Gemmanick has lived in iso lated mining districts.
And another Caledonian export item is to be a locallv-made pre fabricated house. This seems strange at a time when the terri tory is employing hundreds of
overseas workers to erect prefabri cated houses of steel and wood from as far afield as Canada and France.
But the Caledonian house to go abroad joins the exhibition village of island houses planned for the South Pacific Festival of Arts in Suva next May.
Latest plans for the festival were discussed in Noumea, late in June, by its executive director, Mr. Vic tor Carell. Mr. Carell was most enthusiastic at his meeting with the recently-formed Caledonian Music Lovers’ Societe, whose musicians he feels should make a significant contribution to the Suva festival.
Other visitors to the territory in June included an Australian par liamentary delegation of 11 mem bers, who were making a three and-a-half-week tour of seven is land groups in the South Pacific.
It’s led by Mr. Charles Barnes, the Minister for Territories.
The parliamentarians received a particularly romantic, candle-lit reception in Noumea: the city, bursting in its hasty development, produced a timely electricity black out the evening of their first recep tion, at the residence of the Aus tralian Consul, and the degelation was able to see at first hand that Noumea is expanding fast.
Anew bank opened in the terri tory in June, the State-controlled Societe Generale. Construction has also finally begun on the island’s second brewery. At the same time, the Noumea Chamber of Com merce is being flooded with letters from workers in France, seeking jobs in the territory: no less than 102 requests were received in the first two months of this year. The Chamber of Commerce has thus recommended that the Overseas Territories Department in Paris should advise would-be-immigrants more realistically about the prob lems of accommodation and high living costs in the territory, before whole families land on the island without firm work contracts and lodgings.
If last month saw the great world powers battling to guard their secrets of space exploration and defence strategy in Vietnam, Noumea also had its secrets to cherish, such as the choice of a new secretary-general and anew three-year plan for the South Paci fic Commission.
Certain people at the SPC, where the staff morale is currently at its lowest ebb, seem so keen to have secrets and hide their activi ties in oblivion that some observers are wondering, out aloud, if there isn’t some sinister plot to let the commission sink to a watery grave in the lagoon by the time of its 25th anniversary next February.
Some islanders, however, have a rather keen grasp of the situation and if they can get control of the rudder, they will succeed in keep ing the commission afloat by steer ing it away from the reef and into more rewarding waters.
Meanwhile, for those who are fascinated by South Seas mysteries, we can report that the SPC plan ning meeting in June followed habitual trends.
France, after making sure that French-speaking delegates were represented in the essential com mittees, is reported to have promptly walked out of one of them. This harmless little game, however, is but a part of what is fondly known as maintaining “la presence francaise” in the Pacific.
At the same time, it is apparently becoming increasingly difficult to find the right kind of locally-born people in New Caledonia and French Polynesia to represent these two territories, so they were again represented at the SPC by metropolitan French public ser vants.
The meeting had some fortunate results, however. Against an im pressive background row of UN observers. Islanders sat down to discuss some hundred proposals for conferences and training programmes to be conducted over the next three years. Some international observers were dis mayed at the complete absence of any properly-defined policy to guide Islanders in their de cision on what the SPC should be doing to help develop the region.
A committee was thus appointed to draw up what became a very valuable series of pointers in set ting a course for SPC activity and island development generally. This paper was to be circulated subse quently around the Islands.
Finally, the Islanders made their major decision in urging the SPC to form an Economic Intelligence Unit. This is intended to supply the kind of information that would best help the Islands promote their industries and overseas trade.