million a sip

Aid money at a million a sip

It was a scene which many Pacific islanders perhaps thought they would never see; Japanese prime minister Yasu hiro Nakasone, leader of over 100 million people, sipping tea under a Fijian village canopy with the leader of around 600,000, and coolly dishing out goodies worth a million dollars a sip.

Mr Nakasone spent an ex pensive four hours in Fiji. Be fore boarding his DC 10 en route to Papua New Guinea, he had promised the Fiji prime minister, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, more than Fs9 million in extra aid.

But behind Mr Nakasone’s measured exterior calm there

might just have lurked a touch of embarrassment.

For the trade imbalance be tween Fiji and Japan has reached ridiculous dimensions, all of course in the oriental favor.

In just nine months of last year, Fiji imported over FssB million worth of goods. It in cluded everything from $4 mil lion worth of food, to over $2B million worth of machinery and transport equipment.

In return, Fiji managed to push a paltry $3 million worth of produce into Japan, a marked decrease even from 1981 when its annual exports reached $36 million.

In 1983, out of all South

Pacific countries trading with Japan, only the tiny Marianas, Marshalls and Caroline Islands managed to sell less than Fiji’s $8 million. Even the Solomon Islands’ exports topped $35 million.

The outlook seems grim. As a senior official in the six-year old embassy of Japan in Suva put it: “Fiji has nothing to export to Japan but paw paw and man go.”

Mr Nakasone, when asked what Japan might do about the Pacific Islands balance of trade problems, protested that Japan’s tariffs and trade barriers were lower than both the Euro pean Economic Community, and the United States.

“The idea that Japan is a country with high tariffs and other barriers against imports is a serious mistake,” he said.

“Tariff cuts planned for 1986 will be implemented two years ahead of schedule.

“We have decided to raise

the General Scheme of Prefer ences ceiling quotas for items of interest to developing coun tries. ”

While tariff cuts were ad vanced by a year for agricultu ral products, in general, com modities of special interest to developing countries would come in a year early.

“Because of the measures taken thus far, it has become easier to import papaya, shrimp, and some other com modities,” said Mr Nakasone.

None of which is going to plug the trading chasms be tween small island countries and the oriental nation which has become a by-word for single-minded economic suc cess.

Which is where financial aid comes in. Mr Nakasone himself mentioned the new assistance Japan would give Fiji as part of his reply about trade gaps.

It evolved as $8 million for a new nursing school in Suva,