minerals - and found rice

Business

Prospector searched for minerals - and found rice

Armand Beaudoin is a man with strong ideas about how expatriate businessmen should behave in Pacific Island countries.

A Canadian-born minerals prospector, and managing director of Melanesia Explorations Ltd and five other companies, he says; “I’ve got no time for people who get the jitters when they think about the Island countries going indepen dent.

“There’s a place for foreign en terprise in all these countries. But it’s got to be foreign enterprise with some concern for the development of the host country, and an unders tanding that the time has gone when the local people could be pushed around.

“The only people who’ve got any thing to worry about are the fly-by night, fast-buck operators. For them time has really run out.

“For everybody else, the way to think of doing business in the Is lands these days is under long-term arrangements on a joint venture basis with the local people.”

Mr Beaudoin claims he practises what he preaches. By way of illustra tion, talking to PIM during a short visit to Sydney in August, he gave a rundown on his major present in terest; the development of an irri gated rice-growing project at Big Bay, in the Jordan River delta on Santo in the New Hebrides.

“I discovered the area about 18 months ago, when I was there prospecting for minerals,” he recall ed. “It reminded me of irrigated rice country I'd seen in Taiwan.”

What began as very much a sideline to his minerals prospecting soon became an absorbing interest for Mr Beaudoin so much so that he now plans to stay in the New Hebrides for several years, chiefly to bring the rice project to fruition.

His first step was to make an aerial survey of the area. Then he ran 40 km of survey lines across it to sample the soil.

Freelance consultants approach ed by Mr Beaudoin proved un

satisfactory, so he “went higher’’ and, after contacts with Australian aid officials in Canberra, secured the services of two top experts from the New South Wales Water Resources Commission and the NSW Department of Agriculture.

The Australian Government picked up the tab for an inspection visit made by these two men to the pro ject site on Santo in August. Their report is expected before the end of the year.

Next step planned by Mr Beau doin is a trial run at growing irri gated rice on 400 hectares of the area.

“Do things right’’ is another aspect of Mr Beaudoin’s philosophy of doing business in the Islands.

This is well illustrated by the way he went about getting the Big Bay pro ject off the ground.

First he set about creating an across-the-board consensus of the local people in favour of the project.

His success in this task is enshrined in a document he showed to PIM. It was signed by representatives of all local political forces, from Jimmy Stevens of the Na-Griamel Federa tion, through local Custom Chiefs, to representatives of the Vanuaaku Party (formerly the National Party of the New Hebrides).

The document was the text of an agreement granting Melanesia Ex plorations Ltd a long-term lease on 15 000 hectares in the Big Bay area on a joint venture basis with the local people, who are to enjoy a substantial share of profits accruing from the venture. After 45 years the whole operation reverts without charge to the New Hebrides.

Mr Beaudoin then sought and obtained approval for the project from the Natural Resources Com mittee of the Representative Assem bly, elected representatives of the New Hebridean people.

Finally, in a document dated February 15, 1977, and signed by the French and British Resident Commissioners, the project won the formal approval of the New Hebrides Condominium.

Yet another impressive sign of the seriousness with which the project is viewed by knowledgeable people in the Islands surfaced when Mr P. C.

Best, group general manager of Burns Philp & Co Ltd, appeared before the Senate Standing Commit tee on Foreign Affairs and Defence in Sydney in July.

The Big Bay rice project figures in second place on a list presented by Mr Best of 12 Islands projects which “could be the recipients of aid from Australia” (first place was held by the upgrading of facilities at Vila’s Bauer Field airport).

Mr Best suggested Australian government assistance in the build ing of a 1 000-metre grass airstrip at Big Bay to accommodate Britten Norman Islander aircraft and assist the rice project.

Said Mr Beaudoin: "It’s not so much whether you win or lose in the Pacific, but how you play the game.

If you play it right, you're likely to be a winner.”

His attitudes are shaped by years of prospecting work in countries as far apart as Alaska and Iran. Green land and Taiwan. Mexico and New Zealand.

He says: “1 don’t see living and

Armand Beaudoin on location with a friend

working in the Islands as any kind of an escape from the rat-race. I don't see it as a fast, hard-cash business deal either. I see it more as a way of life.

“If business people are willing to change their altitudes, work hard to understand the local people, and then decide how they're going to work with them, they'll succeed"

The New Hebrides at present im ports 4 000 tonnes of rice a year at a price of roughly $4OO a tonne. Mr Beaudoin foresees a time when not only will these islands be freed of this import cost burden, but they will actually be rice exporters.

Many problems remain to be overcome; there are difficulties pos ed by wild cattle in the area, not to mention malaria-carrying mos quitoes.

But as Armand Beaudoin and his dozen or so local assistants battle on in their spartan work camp at Big Bay “no politics, no religion and no booze” is the rigid rule there it is possible to share their optimism that an operation of real economic and social significance for the New Hebrides will one day flourish on the flat, swampy country that sur rounds them.

Regional telecom

set up in Suva

A regional telecommunications training centre has been established in Suva by Fiji, Tonga. Western Samoa, the Cook Islands, Niue and the New Hebrides to train staff to operate and maintain the telecom munications network in the region.

The project is supported by the United Nations Development Pro gramme. the International Telecom munications Union, the Common wealth Fund for Technical Co operation. Australia and New Zea land. Apart from the regional train ing centre in Suva, there are basic training centres in the Cook Islands, Tonga and Western Samoa.

Mr Ray Hillier, of the Australian Telecommunications Commission, has been seconded to Suva for 18 months as senior training adviser.

Other Australian assistance with the project includes a contribution of $5O 000 and three advisers for two years. Australia recently undertook to contribute another $250 000.