Caledonians’
pp. 15-93 · Read in the full issue
economic switch-back
For those who share Paris’ keen interest in plotting out the New Caledonian economy, Noumea’s hard working computer operators turned out a mass of figures in February detailing the state of the territory.
Most important are the nickel production figures. These showed that in 1976 nickel ore output was 5.9 million tonnes, a drop of 12 percent on the 6.7 million tonnes extracted in 1975. Similarly the production of smelted nickel at the SLN furnaces dropped 13 per cent to 61,911 tonnes.
On the export side, nickel ore ship ments to Japan rose nine per cent to 2693 million tonnes. However, there was a significant drop in shipment of metal, which totalled 51,489 tonnes, a cut of 17 per cent in volume and six per cent in value. Metal exports were worth 18,330 million CFP (about SAIB3 million) in 1976. Together with ore exports, this carped nearly SA2O million for the territorial budget by way of export tax. In addition, chrome exports totalled 9,105 tonnes.
Another movement out of the territory last year concerned persons, and resulted in a population loss of over 2,000, including 1,670 Europeans.
This was out of a total island population of 133,000. This reflected the drop in employment opportunities, with about 4,000 persons counted as unemployed, although such figures are hard to assess due to the numbers of Melanesians reabsorbed into tribal
living. The active working population
was estimated at 46,700 last year.
The territory’s trade balance, however, showed up a surplus of 1,952 million CFP (almost SA2O million).
This was due to the higher value of mining products and a 10.6 per cent drop in the value of imports. Payments for the latter amounted to about $ A 242 million, with major cuts in textiles, heavy equipment and transport items.
France supplied 39 per cent of goods, with Australia and New Zealand lifting their shares to 13 and 3.5 per cent respectively. France was similarly the top buyer of Caledonian nickel, taking 51 per cent of total exports, the territory’s full exports for the year being valued at 26,131 million
CFP (about SA26I million).
Two other indices of economic interest reflect the level of car sales and home building. New vehicle registra tions for 1976 totalled 3,877 compared with 5,332 in 1974. In addition 493 motorcycles were registered. On the building front, only 724 new dwelling units were completed in 1976, compared with 1,858 in 1975.
Above this sombre situation hang the 1977 territorial budget figures which continued to be strongly contested in February. While Paris firmly refused any postponing in repayment of the public debt amounting to about SAI2 million for 1977, both sides of the Territorial Assembly bitterly, but belatedly, blamed Paris for encouraging this build-up of the island’s debt.
At the same time, local protest continued over how Paris would take over payment of salaries in mission schools, amid a struggle in which Catholic Archbishop Klein strongly defended the rights of the Melanesians to a retention of their own culture.