in Apia

Small business course succeeds in Apia

The first of a planned series of small business courses to help improve the skills of owner managers or those considering going into business were held in Apia, Western Samoa, recently.

A total of 23 people took part in the seminar which was organ ised and sponsored locally by the Development Bank of Western Samoa in conjunction with New Zealand Deve lopment Finance Corporation’s Small Business Agency. The program will last for two years and is being funded under N.Z. government aid.

Small Business Agency rep resentative, Tony Clark, visited Western Samoa in early ’B5 when the plan was developed to conduct the first of the courses several months later.

Mr Rudy Meredith, training

officer with the Development Bank of Western Samoa, vi sited New Zealand to see the programs being run, to enable planning for the first workshops to take place.

The course included notes, lectures, discussion and films on all the basic facets of running a small business. Mr Clark said he found it interesting that most of the participants seemed to draw particular value from the sec tion on accounting methods profit and loss, balance sheets and cash flow forecasting.

About 75 per cent of the participants had attended either university or technical institutes at tertiary level. The rest had finished secondary school.

About half were female and the largest age group was 25-35.

Boral Gas Ltd., brought all of their managers from around the Pacific at a seminar held in Canberra in October. It allowed the above unique photograph to be taken, showing some of the best-known faces in Pacific Islands energy business.

Front row (left to right): Harvie Probert, Fiji; Meg Pitcher, Norfolk Island; Lionel Browne, Rarotonga.

Middle section: Peter McDonell, Boral Gas chief general manager, Sydney; Frank Tomlin, Honiara; Keith Land rigan, Pago Pago; Ken Hutton, Santo; Nick Wildin, Port Moresby; George Dubois, Port Vila.

Back row; Howard Pitcher, Norfolk Island; Alwyn Ball, Boral’s general manager, offshore operations; Bob Fus sell, Port Moresby.