and its own airline

Tonga wants a new airport and its own airline

Tonga, with help from the newly-created Bank of the South Pacific, has started to up

grade Fua’amotu airport, near

Nukualofa, to international standard. King Taufa’ahau

Tupou has performed a

groundbreaking ceremony for the airport extension and an industrial estate.

The Governor of the Bank of the South Pacific, Mr John Meier, said construction work on both projects would take about three years. Many local jobs would be created.

When the airport reaches in ternational standards, the bank will help Tonga to finance a national airline to be started sometime in the next 12 months.

“The problem with airlines is that many have no choice but

to land in Fiji and other points in the South Pacific,” Mr Meier said. “I have spoken to officials of other major airlines who said they felt Tonga was better location and weather wise.”

He said several airline officials feared the political cli mate in Fiji and would wel come Tonga as an alternate location.

The industrial estate in cludes a hotel, which may have as many as 500 units. It was expected a final decision would be made soon.

Mr Meier said he believed enough tourism would be generated to make all the

bank’s projects economically

viable in the long run.

King Taufa’ahau Tupou,

speaking some days before Mr

Meier, said a Taiwanese group might be involved with the air line.

The king was asked if he had any reservations about Mr Meier, who has been involved in legal action in the United States over alleged tax evasion and financial deals made when he was an employee in Howard Hughes’ empire. He now lives in Canada.

The king replied: “His back ground is, of course, unfor tunate. The point is he is in a

position, and is willing, to help

Tonga in a way nobody else is

willing to help Tonga.”

An Australian proposal was that the airport should not be upgraded till 1995 at the earliest. The Australian plan

did not envisage Tonga having

its own airline.