brightest hope’,

Tourism still the brightest hope’, says Westpac man

Tourism remains the single best prospect for Pacific Island na tions seeking to expand their foreign trade, but with care, foresight, and a realisation of the standards required, some had a future in manufacturing, says R.

J. Huey, new chief manager, Fiji and Pacific Islands, for the West pac Banking Corporation. (West pac is the new name of the former Bank of New South Wales.) Mr Huey has replaced Geoff Yates, who has returned to Aust ralia at the end of his tour in Fiji.

“I’m bullish about tourism”, said Mr Huey. “The traffic into the Pacific from Australia and most other source-countries should pick up as the world economy improves, people have more money to spend, and begin looking about for good holidays.

“Fiji has a good image, and so do Vanuatu and New Caledonia, which have the added advantage for Australian and American tourists, particularly, of being culturally different.

“But all of them have to keep a very hard eye on the quality of

the product they offer. Competi

tion is stiff, and will probably get stiffer.

“So much is tied up with im age,” he said. “Word-of-mouth publicity is very powerful, for and against. It only needs one family to come back to Australia or the U.S. complaining they

were ripped off by some shop

keeper to do a very great deal of damage to a country’s tourist

industry.”

As tourism grew there would be need for new investment in hotels and other plant, he said.

Indeed most Pacific countries al ready needed more tourist rooms if they were to expand their

trading.

“I will be very interested in promoting investment and trade,” Mr Huey said.

He was not, however, overly optimistic, he said, about manu facturing being able to make sub stantial contributions to export earnings, even in more advanced Pacific countries like Fiji. But there was room for improving the present situation, particularly if entrepreneurs set out to produce items the countries were good at, and did so with a keen eye to quality, as well as price.

“Obviously most will look

first towards replacing imports.

In Fiji the Monosavu hydro electric scheme is a classic exam ple of how investment within a nation can save millions of dol lars in foreign exchange. It was a

very big investment by the stan dards of the country, and servic ing the debt will be a burden but in the long term it will be of great benefit to Fiji,” he said.

Elsewhere the Pacific Islands could look towards fisheries, food production, and, in several important cases, timber sales, as means of boosting their export earnings, he said.

Mr R. J. Huey