Out to beat the odds

VANUATU has an impressive range of crops and manufactured goods and opening for exports; it enjoys the same access as Fiji has in selling garments and furniture into Australia and New Zealand (under SPARTECA) and exporting agriculture or dairy products into the European Community (Lome Convention); and it has special entry into the United States under the Generalised System of Preferences.

Vanuatu also has at least as many investment and finance centre security incentives as any other Island country. It has operated a respected international finance centre since 1971.

Why then, asks principal trade officer, Roy Mickey, is the country lacking large scale foreign investment and export thrust? Mickey, the chief government officer seconded to the World Expo Committee last year, discovered that it has been a lack of exposure coupled with local problems. “Our local politics of the past . . . problems with work permits, the green letter business where foreigners got deported were all problems for us,” he said.

But there has been a change in government, with a new coalition part ner joining the old Lini administration.

A few exports have started in a big way with beef being exported to Japan, New Caledonia and Fiji, copra to Europe, and coffee, cocoa and kava to France.

Kava and coffee have shown potential for export expansion this year. Four million kava plants are planned for plantation in 1992. Kava used in the chemical and pharmaceutical market in France earned the country 8.9 million (SUS7O,OOO could you ) in 1989.

A large coffee-planting scheme is under way on Tanna island under a joint

Commonwealth Development Corpor

ation (60 per cent) and Vanuatu govern ment venture. Exports of up to five tonnes of coffee a month were planned for this year to Australia, Vanuatu’s princi pal trading partner.

Vanuatu’s push into Europe will start at Expo ’92, said finance secretary George Pakoa. “Some think that our trade and tourism links are with Austra lia, why should we go all the way to Europe. But I feel Vanuatu should be made known. Our going to Spain is not

only tourism but for boosting trade and investment as well.”

The country’s appeal for tourists will be that Vanuatu is an “untouched paradise”. With a decline in tourist arrivals from Australia and New Zealand as a result of recession, Europeans could fill the vacuum. “Europe could easily full the slump we’re facing,” said Linda Kalpoi, a manager at National Tourism Office in Port Vila.

Vanuatu has been attracting a steady flow of European tourists after it began taking part in World Trade shows with the Tourism Council of the South Pacific in Munich, London and Germany.

Kalpoi said remote and exotic areas like the islands of Tanna, Santo and Male kula are now being opened up for tourists.

Vanuatu offers that something extra: volcanoes, unique Melanesian custom dances, diving and the bungy jumping.

It has some of the most exclusive resorts in the South Pacific. A new hotel, Kakula Island Resort and Club Med are planned in the outer lesser-known islands.

New Caledonia, which has direct flights to France, provides the quickest connection to Port Vila. Flag carrier, Air Vanuatu has plans to increase flights out of Australia and New Zealand from June if forecasts improve. □