Fill ’em up for a tot o’ ‘Bounty’

tot o’ ‘Bounty’

‘Bounty’ brand rum is now being produced for the first time in Fiji by South Pacific Distilleries Ltd in Fiji’s sugar city of Lautoka. The distillery was established in 1980 to make use of by-products from the sugar mills.

The 5F3.5 million distillery, a subsidiary of Fiji Sugar Corpor ation, first began producing gin and then vodka under inter national brand names. Under licence, gin is bottled under Booths ‘High and Dry’ label, and vodka under the ‘Cossack’ label. ‘Bounty’ rum is the first spirit locally made and bottled under a Fiji label.

That the operation has not been a painless one was made clear by Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara when, dis cussing Fiji’s liquor-making project in a speech at the Commonwealth Heads of Gov

ernment meeting in Melbourne last October, he said (PIM Nov ’Bl pi 4): ‘But what do we find?

The multi-nationals who have been selling these commodities in our country chose to dump their products on to our market in order to strangle this new industry. This indicates that if we do not give protection to a new industry, we will never be able to establish any manufac turing industry at all.’

Price falls

hit WRC

Effects of low commodity prices on Pacific Island economies were largely blamed for a 26 percent fall in net profit of W.

R. Carpenter Holdings Ltd in the quarter ended September 30, 1981.

The chairman, C. H.

Carpenter, told the company’s annual meeting in Sydney late

last year that Papua New Guinea, in particular, had been seriously affected by the low price of copper, and its effect on consumer demand for general merchandise and automotive products.

In 1980-81, the company boosted net profit 17 percent to a record $15.42 million. A sharp improvement by its Aus tralian subsidiaries more than offset the sharp decline already underway in its Pacific oper ations.

Tokyo gives a

hand to Apia

The Japanese Government has given the equivalent of SNZS79 000 to Western Samoa for an agriculture-oriented edu cational project. The grant is in addition to the $ 1 052 000 grant made by Japan in 1980 to extend schools on Upolu and Savaii Islands. The Western Samoa Government has drawn up plans to expand and improve secondary education, stressing agricultural and vocational training.