year program

New Caledonia

First steps in line with a three year program

New Caledonia’s 1984 Budget

expenditure of

CFP31,200,000,000 (about $A232 million) is directed to the

promotion of balanced regional

development, and lessening the

dependence of the economy on the nickel industry.

CFP4 billion (about $3O mill ion) will be devoted to infrastruc ture projects such as roads, wharves, and so on.

Heavy expenditure will also be devoted to the promotion of ag riculture and animal husbandry, and to fisheries and the timber

industry.

Small businesses are to be en couraged, and tourism, while be ing promoted, is to be increas ingly integrated with the Melane sian way of life.

The territory has experienced a

decline in cattle numbers, due mainly to settlers ceasing opera tions following land claims by Melanesian tribes.

But the Government Council lor in charge of the economy, Henri Bailly, told PIM that cat tle-breeding was now picking up again, and that increasing num bers of Melanesians were taking up cattle runs.

The focus of the land redis tribution, he said, is to give back land to tribes who submit an economic proposition for use of the land along with their claim.

For the first time. New Caledonia has a three-year economic planning framework, a result of the general economic summit meeting held in Noumea in June, 1983. The summit,

which brought together political.

administrative, union, business, professional, church and educa tion leaders, set the guidelines for the organisation of produc tion and the provision of infras tructure works over the next three years.

The territory’s coffee industry was in decline in 1983, leading to imports of coffee from Vanuatu and some African coun tries. It has been given a boost with an injection of funds to the tune of CFP1,215,000,000 (ab out $9 million) for the next three years, which was voted recently by the Territorial Assembly. Fol lowing the lack of success of “Operation Coffee” launched five years ago, emphasis is to be put on larger coffee plantations run by co-operatives and groups of productions to cut water and

equipment costs. “Operation

Coffee”, or “Sun Coffee”, was an attempt to convert Melanesian growers to a coffee type which does not grow in the shade, as they had been used to.

Inflation in the territory ran at 11.1 per cent for the 12 months to November, 1983.

Henri Bailly says the Govern ment Council is aiming to reduce this to seven per cent in 1984.

The territory has had a price

freeze in operation since Octob er, which is to be lifted in March.

Mr Bailly is optimistic about the territory’s economic pros pects for 1984. He says: “The nickel and cattle industries are picking up, and there is no sign of a drop in investments on

the contrary, we have a bot tleneck of investment applica tions waiting to be dealt with.

“We also have cut back as far as possible on the running ex penses of the administration to permit heavier investment in

public works.”

Helen Fraser.