worth cultivating
p. 61 · Read in the full issue
Islands are worth cultivating
The Pacific Islands, with a population of more than six million, offers many oppor tunites for Australian exporters.
The annual import bill for most of the groups, excluding Hawaii and periphery territories such as Irian Jaya and the Philippines, runs to more than $l,OOO million a year, while Islands’ ex ports earn more than $750 million a year.
As the Island groups develop a western style off living, which may or may not be good for them and their cultures, they demand more and more western goods, food, machinery, commodities, and so on. Naturally, the bigger groups such as Papua New Guinea and Fiji, buy and sell the most.
PNG, in 1975, exported goods, mostly primary products, worth K 427,470,000, while im ports were valued at K393,997,- 000. Fiji’s import bill in 1975 was $220,967,000 and her ex ports, including re-exports, totalled $142,293,000.
Guam and the Trust Territory are a couple of good markets, in which there is keen competition for Australia from the US.
Australia’s devaluation of late 1976 helped her to recover some of her competitive edge, and some of the markets lost to the US.
Closer to home, in Fiji, Tonga, Western Samoa and the Solomons, Australia faces strong competition from New Zealand over a wide field of food, and manufactured goods. On a cur rency exchange basis, NZ has a slight advantage.