Business and Development

Australian Aid Mission Sees Very

Bright Future' For The Solomons

From a Honiara correspondent

Really big money is available for development in the Solomon Islands from two main sources—Australia, if the protectorate shows it can “pro duce the goods”, and the Asian De velopment Bank. There are other sources, including the Common wealth Development Corporation. An Australian aid mission recently visi ted the BSIP. So did the protec torate’s newly appointed alternate director at the ADB headquarters in Manila, Mr Christopher Conybeare, an Australian.

The BSIP is pinning great hopes on an oil palm industry, which inclu des building a mill with associated buildings for Solomon Islands Plan tation Ltd on Guadalcanal Plains.

Mr Conybeare dashed immediate hopes of a $3 million to $4 million loan because the mill is in such a “tender stage”. The BSIP Govern ment, backing the project, now seems likely to look elsewhere for a loan, possibly from the Commonwealth Development Corporation, so that the mill may be built on schedule, ready to process the first palm fruits.

The Australian attitude is to make grants, provided a case can be made out for a project. Aid has been given in the past, but not of any great magnitude. Current aid is mainly heavy equipment for road building, provision of two experts on pasture improvement working on the Guadal canal Plains, a study of animal dis eases, Brahman cattle for breeding, and technical advice.

Mr J. Starey, who headed the Aus tralian aid mission, had a look at aid possibilities. He formed a “quick conclusion” that the future of the BSIP was “very bright indeed”. He inspected the cattle industry, particu larly the large communal develop ment on Holokama plantation, Santa Ysabel, and the small, but growing cocoa industry.

The BSIP now has a cattle popu lation of 15,721 (15.4 per cent up on 1972) and is well on the way to in ternal self-sufficiency in beef with 40,000 head by the early 1980 s.

Self-sufficiency could well be fol lowed by a beef export industry.

Mr Starey said he was impressed by the possibilities of bauxite deposits on Rennell and Wagina Islands, the flourishing skipjack tuna industry, and the oil palm industry. He considered the Solomon Islands far more capa ble of developing than some other groups the aid mission visited, espec ially through diversifying in agricul ture. The mission visited the GEIC, Fiji, Tonga and Western Samoa be fore going to the BSIP.

An obvious extension of aid, Mr Starey said, would be to provide long landing barges to carry cattle and equipment between the islands. There was also a short-term need for a can

nery. Depending on a NZ study of such a proposal, it might be appro priate for Australia to help to build a cannery for beef and other local foodstuffs.

Also with the Australian mission was Mr Harold Bullock, the Aust ralian High Commissioner in Fiji, who said all the individual projects the BSIP government proposed would fit into the seventh development plan, which would start in 1975. Australia was most interested in helping high priority projects. It was up to the BSIP government to set its priorities.

Australian aid in the Pacific till mid-1972 had been small; the em phasis was on helping SE Asia. Now more aid was to be given to the

BSIP, Fiji, Tonga and the GEIC particularly, with some to Western Samoa and the New Hebrides, and possibly the Cook Islands.

“I am confident that aid will in crease further at the end of the pre sent pledge period in 1975”, he said.

“We are working on the basis: You give us the projects and, within reason we will find the money”.

Mr Bullock said one of the most appreciated services supplied to the BSIP so far had been an annual visit by a team of eye specialists for surgical operations. That type of ser vice would be extended to other types of specialists’ visits.

“We are considering asking other South Pacific countries if they too would be interested so there could be a circuit of specialists”, he said, “There is really no justification for posting specialists permanently among the small populations of the islands”.

Crocodiles in the

forming business

A crocodile farm experiment has been launched at Port Moresby with a two-pronged objective—to conserve a dwindling crocodile population and build up a local industry to tan 25,000 to 30,000 skins a year. This move follows a trial in the Western District, where crocodiles are raised under farm conditions.

There’s money in crocodile skins.

These are recent Papua New Guinea prices Fresh water skins Belly width 254 mm (10 in.) and over, $3.40 an inch (Ist grade), $l.BO (2nd grade), 60c (3rd grade); belly width 203.2 mm (8 in.) to 228.6 mm (9 in.), $8,50 (Ist grade); 152.4 mm (6 in.) to 177.8 mm (7 in.), $4 (Ist grade); and 91.6 mm (4 in.) to 127 mm (5 in.), 80c (Ist grade). Salt water skins (Ist grade): Belly width, 254 mm (10 in.) and over, $3.50 an inch; 203.2 mm (8 in.) to 228.6 mm (9 in.), $lO each.

There are some sobering thoughts about the future of the industry. The export value of skins in 1972-73 was $254,379. In 1965-66 it was $1,001,075. Unrestricted killing in some parts of Papua New Guinea is reducing the number of crocodiles.

Mr Rod J. Kelly, senior wildlife ranger, recently warned that the industry would perish if the govern ment did not enforce strict measures to protect it. The regulation to pro tect crocodiles with a belly width of more than 20 inches had not been enforced in the East Sepik, West Sepik and Madang Districts, resulting in a lower number of skins from that area. In Papua, mature animals are

not killed, and, says Mr Kelly, the industry there may recover in three or four years. Papua had had a long dry season and future production would depend on the mature breeding survivors.

There are nine licensed crocodile skin exporters, but only six are active.

Licences have been issued to 47 crocodile skin buyers—2o in New Guinea and 27 in Papua. Buying licences cost $lO.

Fiji in the red

but unworried

Fiji’s trade deficit in 1972 was a record $66 million, but there is no cause for alarm for it is almost covered by “invisible” earnings from the tourist industry and the inflow of overseas capital. The imports were up by about 18 per cent to $l3l million, and exports rose by about 5 per cent to $65 million.

The gross domestic product was estimated at $215 million, a rise of $27.2 million, compared with 1971.

The gdp, per head, increased from $354 in 1971 to $397 in 1972.

Sugar production fell from 322,070 tonnes (317,000 tons) in 1971 to

301,968 tonnes (298,000 tons).

Higher prices offset the drop. The earnings from sugar at $34.4 million were 4.8 per cent up on 1971.

Receipts from gold exports were $2,942 million, compared with 52.678 million in 1971, even though the weight of exports dropped by 11 per cent. Real output in manufacturing and processing grew by about 5 per cent. Demand pressures in the build ing and construction industry con tinued throughout 1972, with real output increasing by about 14 per cent.

Hurricane Bebe affected domestic food supplies and demand pressures in the construction industry, forcing up the cost of living. The consumer price index rose from 115.2 in 1971 to 125.7 in 1972. The number of registered companies at the end of 1972 was 1,456, a rise of 22 per cent on the total at the end of 1971.

Wage employment rose by 1 per cent, compared with 10 per cent in 1971, while salaried employment rose by 5 per cent, compared with 9 per cent in 1971.

A decline in production, coupled with a sharp fall in world prices, cut export earnings in the coconut industry by about 40 per cent —from

$3,944 million in 1971 to $2,375 million in 1972.

The tourist industry showed a slight drop in earnings, although there was an 8.9 per cent rise in the number of visitors. The receipts for 1972 were estimated at $3l million ($31.1 million in 1971). Hurricane Bebe, devaluation of the US dollar and tighter Australian regulations governing the entry of duty-free goods were the main reasons for the fall.

The government’s ordinary revenue for 1972 was $59,072,354, and ex penditure was $56,724,847. The sur plus of $2,347,507, was very close to the original estimate of $2,384,043.

Trouble brewing

for PNG teo

The New Guinea tea industry’s future is clouded. Tea is about the only commodity not commanding high prices on world markets today.

Pacific Islands producers are en joying particularly good prices for a number of commodities copra, cocoa, coffee and sugar. Rubber prices, too, are good.

Two revaluations of the Australian dollar in nine months dealt heavy blows to the struggling tea industry.

The PNG Government is using the

new currency alignments as a lever to get the Australian Government to give short-term help to the industry.

Three of PNG’s “big four” tea producers recently told the PNG Government they were operating at a loss, and would have to close unless they were helped. These were Kuru mul Tea Plantations (owned by Pioneer Concrete), Mt Hagen Tea Growers and ANG Developments Ltd.

The “odd man” out was W. R.

Carpenter. There is no reason to suppose W. R. Carpenter is doing any better than the others. It is probably just as concerned as the other big growers at the state of the market. But it is obviously looking at the position in the longer term, for it is putting up another tea factory at Aviamp to supplement its existing factories at Kudjip and Kindeng.

The industry’s plight poses a diffi cult problem for the government.

There are about 500 small growers, most of them indigenous people, who sell their crops to the tea factories.

Then the industry is highly labour intensive. The plantations employ about 500 people, and up to another 20,000 depend on the industry for casual employment.

PNG could take a positive step by devaluing to help the producers if it was master of its own currency, but the country will use Australian currency till December 1, 1974, at the earliest. And unless Australia does an about turn before then and devalues, a currency move for PNG is just not on.

The industry expects losses for the 12 months to June 30, 1974, to reach about $700,000. The compensation sought from the Australian Govern ment is based on currency realign ments since July 1, 1972, with a reduction in compensation if prices rise above a base level, and no in crease if they fall.

The PNG Government has asked Australia to pay this assistance for three years—to June 30, 1975, or till PNG gets its own currency. • The New Guinea Development Corporation will invest $50,000 in a cocoa fermentary, a store and a service station on the Gazelle Penin sular. The corporation will buy the store and the fermentary and lease the service station, in Rabaul, for three years. The corporation is also building a $50,000 tavern at Wuna wutung on a beach front about seven miles from Rabaul.