Budget takes
p. 49 · Read in the full issue
shine off luxury living
Tlie New Hebrides had to increase duties for 1974 to bridge a gap of labout 46 million NH francs between [income and expenditure. Overall, the economic picture for the condo minimum is sound. There was a re strained note of optimism in the joint address of the Resident Commissioners to the Budget session of the Advisory Council.
Duty increases for 1974 include: Cars, up from 15 to 20 per cent; beer, up from NHFI2.S to NHFI9 a litre; fine wines, up from NHF2S to NHF3S a litre; cigarettes, up from NHF3SO to NHF4OO a pound; and alcoholic liquor, up from NHF5.25 to NHF7.25 a gallon.
Other measures to raise revenue include an entertainment tax of 10c a ticket on cinema tickets and similar forms of public entertainment, in creased sanitation, water and tele phone charges and an airport tax of NHF2OO for each departing inter national passenger. The new charges are expected to raise the NHF46 million needed to balance receipts with expenditure of NHF7IS million.
Mr R. Langlois, French Resident Commissioner, read the joint address of the commissioners.
They said a general rise in the price of primary products balanced a rise in import prices, reversing a trend which they would not dare hope for at the beginning of 1973.
Copra was NHF 15,000 a ton, de livered Vila and Santo; less than a year earlier it was only NHF4,OOO.
Exports of copra in the first 10 months of 1973 reached 20,027 tons, valued at NHF227.4 million, com pared with 16,164 tons valued at NHF196.7 million in the first 10 months of 1972.
The stability of cocoa prices also led to an increase in production. To the end of October, 1973, 721 tons of copra beans were exported, worth NHF3I.4 million, compared with 206 tons worth NHF6.B million in the corresponding period of 1972.
Other primary products, with com parative figures for 1972 in brackets, for the first 10 months of 1973, sold as follows: Meat (to New Caledonia)—7s2 tons worth NHF55.4 million (530 tons, NHF3S million). Manganese— tons, NHF2O.6 million (30,411 tons, NHF 15.2 million).
Frozen fish—Not expected to change much, with earnings slightly higher.
In 1972 fish exports totalled 15,000 tons.
Exports totalled NHF 1,004,449,000 for the first nine months of 1973.
There was a slowing down in imports because of depressed copra prices earlier in the year, and for the first nine months they were valued at
Nhf 1,569,000,000.
The commissioners said that activities in the tourist industry bore out earlier hopes they placed in it in boosting the economy. The number of passengers arriving in Vila in longdistance flights had almost doubled in three years, the number arriving in
cruise ships had quadrupled in a year, The number of visitors jumped from 22,000 in 1972 to 46,000 in 1973.
Of the 1973 total, about 11,000 arrived by air for an average stay of 10 days.
About NHF4OO million would be invested in the hotel industry in Vila and Santo in the first three months of 1974. Projects in hand would increase the number of hotel rooms to 750 in 1976 and 1,000 in 1977.
Overall, in spite of the shadows cast by inflation and the petrol short age, the prospects for the economy in 1974 were fairly good. As far as could be foreseen, the price of export produce would remain stable.