Gloom On

Micronesia

Economy

From a special correspondent A frank appraisal of US fail ings in producing a strong economy in the US Trust Terri tory of the Pacific (Micronesia) was given to New Zealanders

recently by visiting US expert

Dr Gordon Law.

Dr Law, who is Assistant and Science Adviser to the US Sec retary of the Department of the Interior, said the islanders’ economies had changed from a subsistence or agricultural base, to one of goods and ser vices and modern market mechanisms. Instead of a grad ual shift in the economies, government had rapidly be come a centrepiece and the pri mary employer of local populations. US federal assist ance to territorial governments had thus become an important economic influence. ‘Employment has gone almost exclusively to US citi zens or aliens, who enter rela

lively easily from off the island.

Citizens or nationals obtain government jobs, with the most skilled then migrating to the US. Lack of movement of the poor and unskilled into the sys tem thwarts progress towards raising levels of skills and wages,’ said Dr Law.

He said in all the US Pacific possessions, government ser vice remained the preferred employment for the indigenous population, and re liance was on wages and salaries and on the purchase of imported goods.

What agriculture remained was primarily home cultivation for family consumption, and small-scale commercial sales of productive excess. Only American Samoa had devel oped a significant fish process ing and export business, and even in Samoa, fishing was

done exclusively by foreign

boats and crews while cannery employment was primarily alien.

Dr Law said: The territories suffer from many economic disadvantages that have been hidden or obscured by the high level of US Government help.’

Politically, the US had every reason to believe that the Micronesian states would prove stable and democratic.

Economically, there was less cause for optimism.

He told New Zealand businessmen that they might be able to help play a big role in economic development in Micronesia by taking an interest in tourism, fisheries, agriculture and capital con struction projects. He said that in the next 10 years the US planned to spend $1 billion on capital construction projects.

Dr Law said that in the Pa cific there were three partially overlapping areas of US concern—the Asian countries on the Pacific rim, the South Pacific Island nations, and the US territories. South Pacific

developments inevitably had

an impact on the attitudes and aspirations of the Micronesian people and ‘it might well be that the emerging entity of Micronesia will play a major role in the formation of US policy in all three of the areas I have mentioned, as well as in our perception of our national role in the Pacific,’ Dr Law added.