years...’

Vanuatu’s economy: ‘We need two years...’

‘Give us 18 months to two years and this place will be booming .. .’ I can’t say how often I heard this idea expressed dur ing the January week I spent in Port-Vila. It’s a kind of article of faith around the place, and the people espousing it aren’t simply naive optimists they include some of the town’s hardest business heads, with decades of experience of the local scene behind them.

They were speaking against the background of the inevi table economic downturn which came in the wake of the country’s turbulent accession to independence. But they spoke also from an intimate and long term understanding of the econ-

omic resilience that can be displayed by this fecund archi pelago of 80-plus islands.

Of course there are prophets of gloom and doom as well.

There is considerable im patience with the government’s delay in taking decisions on certain important problems.

But as one well-informed ex patriate resident put it to me: ‘Perhaps they’re right to be taking their time. I sometimes think it’s one of our problems that we always want things to have been done yesterday .. .’

There is apprehension too as to how the new land legislation will shake down.

Again, there are quite serious grumbles at aspects of the government’s work, inevitable perhaps in view of its inexperi ence and the circumstances in which it is placed. A good example is a letter signed ‘Vic tim of Santo Rebellion’ in the weekly Voice of Vanuatu (January 9). Still awaiting com pensation for his own losses as a result of the rebellion, the writer alleges that an ‘agent of the rebels’ had been authorised by a governmnent official to operate certain businesses be longing to deported Santo busi nessmen now in Noumea. He writes: ‘Such incidents nat urally cause fear that if people in authority do not give serious care and intelligent thought to such issues a rebel or rebel’s agent could easily be given

rights to enter into Luganville but with evil plans even as fatal as murder.’ He makes the dark suggestion that the government official who authorised the ‘rebel agent’ had a ‘drinking habit’, saying: ‘The drinking habit is a personal affair but one needs to ensure that one is in the right state of mind when carry ing on one’s highly important official duties.’

The identities of the ‘rebel’s agent’ and the official are a matter of common knowledge on Santo. But the complaint reveals a disturbing undertow in the complex problem of restor ing the big island to something approaching normality.

An intriguing sidelight to the Vanuatu effort to promote tour ism emerged when a prominent local expatriate citizen recently visited Australia. As a spare time activity he’d gone around various tourist offices in Syd ney, presenting himself as a potential tourist visitor to Vanuatu. He found he got quite proper treatment at the big city agencies, but once he pen etrated the smaller suburban

establishments he found he was likely as not told ‘Vila? Oh, you don’t want to go there. You’d probably finish up with an arrow in your chest.’ The irony is that Port-Vila can boast an atmosphere of social calm and a generally sound law-and-order situation which could well be the envy of some other South Pacific capitals. All this leaves aside the intrinsic attractions of the place for the tourist which have been lauded often enough for me to leave the subject alone.

One final comment on the economic prospects of Vanuatu gleaned during my stay: a close observer of the local scene told me that while some potential investors are buttoning their wallets, really big money is being spent by some others.

They are none other than the local Chinese and Vietnamese businessmen, who are taking advantage of the present de pressed prices to snap up resi dential, industrial and agricul tural properties on both Efate and Santo at a cracking pace.

As my informant remarked: ‘And their track record as businessmen is just about

second to none . .

Malcolm

Salmon.

Vincent Boulekone

(Top picture). The interconti nental Hotels chain, a subsidi ary of Pan Am, is showing its confidence in the future of Vanuatu by adding a 200-seat convention room/ballroom to its 166-room Intercontinental Islands Inn in Port-Vila. Picture shows work proceeding on the project. Intercontinental’s main rival, the 135-room Le Lagon is also adding new rooms. (Be low). The new VIP lounge at Port-Vila, part of a programme of airport extensions. Peta Salmon pictures.