for Tongan
p. 32 · Read in the full issue
EEC help for Tongan airport
Funding from the European Economic Community will be put into upgrading to internatio nal standard the Lupepau’u Airport in Tonga’s northern Vava’u islands. Plans are to develop the strip to the stan dard required for Boeing 737 operation, like the main Fua’amotu Airport on Tongata pu.
Mr Michael Laidler, EEC de legate based in Suva, said there was just over Tsl million left
unspent from the current five year program from Tonga which runs through to 1985.
This, together with money available at the regional level, could be used to finance the first stage of the Vava’u airport proposal, details of which have yet to be finalised. A Lufthansa study mission commissioned by the EEC last year said the upgrading could cost up to T 52.2 million.
The Tongans are now pre paring a project dossier which will go to Brussels for the financing proposal which must precede final approval which in turn will allow tenders to be called.
Mr Laidler and the EEC Pacific desk officer from Brus sels, Mr Steffen Stenberg, dis cussed the airport proposal while in Tonga recently for the opening of an educational EEC exhibition which has now been seen by more than 18,000 people in five Pacific states. ’’Most people are astonished at the level of EEC finance put into the Pacific in the last decade,” said Mr Laidler. ”It now amounts to more than $3OO million.”