calling ...
p. 48 · Read in the full issue
New Caledonia calling ...
“WE want your trade!” is the positive call that has gone out from New Caledonia to the nations of the region.
“We’re wide open for investment and we have great opportunities for you!” Not only is it positive, and the opportunities genuinely attractive, but the call is urgent.
The days have gone for good when trade and investment in this French Pacific territory were tightly tied to metropolitan France, and trying to do business there could be frustratingly restrictive for anybody outside the French sphere of influence. The days have gone for good, in my view when French policy in New Caledonia was regarded with scepticism by the countries of the region. Dramatic changes have occurred in the five years since the signing of the Matignon Accords in June 1988, and legislation
that followed, notably the Referendum Act of November that year.
The Act provides for a referendum on self-determination to take place between March 1 and December 31, 1998, for the people of New Caledonia to decide “whether the territory remains within the French republic or whether it accedes to independence.” To prepare for this, New Caledonia was divided into three semi-autonomous provinces enjoying wide powers including the right to seek and approve direct foreign investment of considerable sums (for very large sums, apporval of the territory government may be involved). They are the Southern Province, which includes the best-developed region, Noumea, with the largest non-Kanak population; and the Northern and the Loyalty Islands provinces. They have their own legislatures, whose members form a territorial congress.
Everything that has happened since the Accords has been directed towards helping the provinces balance their economic and social development, which means, particularly, achieving faster and solid development of the Northern and Islands provinces. (Those two provinces also happen to have the highest unemployment rates of the three). Everybody recognises that equal opportunity for all is a vital ingredient of national unity. New Caledonia is working strongly, and sincerely, towards providing a level playing field for 1998 and beyond.
Thus the matter urgency. New Caledonia really does seek trade and investments, and the sooner the better. New Caledonia has brought its trade barriers tumbling down and has opened its arms to regional co-operation. It wants closer ties with its neighbours. In the words of one recent New Caledonia government statement,“New Caledonia is gradu ally merging into its geographical, cultural and economic environment.” I know from my personal observations that doing business there presents no problems. There is a sound culture of business that makes visiting business-people comfortable.
This has all followed from the Refer endum Act, which has given both the territory and its provinces a measure of autonomy in their outside relations.
They can, for example, attend interna tional, bilateral and multi-lateral meet ings in the South Pacific, where once these reserved for spokesmen of metro
politan France.
Stressing all these points was a high poered New Caledonian delegation that visited Brisbane, Sydney and Canberra at the end of September. Their message was presented to potential Australian investors and business-people at packed meetings in the three cities but it was aimed at the entire region and the message was the same. New Caledonia is in business to do serious business.
The team consisted of Messrs Alain Christnach, French High Commissioner in New Caledonia, Jacques Lafleur,
MP, special envoy of the French Prime Minister and president of the South Province; Richard Kaloi, president of the Loyalty Islands Province; Leopold Joredie, president of the North Province; and Jean Leques, mayor of Noumea and vice-president of congress.
All spoke at length. All made the same point there is a new era of co-operation and development in New Caledonia. They pointed out that the territory (population 170,000) has from 30 to 40 per cent of the world’s nickel reserves, and mining was likely to continue as number one in economic importance. But next came tourism, followed by services and fmallly agriculture.
There were opportunities everywhere, in direct, wholly owned investments or in joint ventures and partnershhips.
Tourism, especially eco-tourism, offered great opportunities.
There were also opportunities for products to be shipped into the territory for partial transformation, enabling them to be admitted free to the European Community markets.
From the floor at the Sydney seminar, Luis Monteiro- D’Aguiar, chief of Westpac Banking Corporation’s New Caledonian operations, offered the observation for the benefit of his business colleagues that New Caledonia made investors welcome and that Westpac, which was the largest Australian investor in the territory, was “very comfortable there”. He added “New Caledonia is learning as it goes. It is a very open situation which is very encouraging for investors. One has to put a case but people are willing to listen. It’s not a sophiscated country but it wants to go forward. We will talk to any investor who needs guidance in doing business there.
So will the South Pacific Trade Commission. We can supply details of foreign investment guidelines, taxation arrangements etc for the territory and the provinces, and will help in identifying opportunities for exports and imports and making contacts. Bill McCabe is senior commissioner of the South Pacific Trade Commission, Sydney, an arm of the South Pacific Forum. O