Islands seek

investment

Although the

people of the Sol omon Islands have a large land area at their disposal most of it remains underutilised, says Perma nent Secretary for Culture and Tourism John Naitoro.

But this is all about to change, according to Naitoro, who said govern ment was looking at ways

of using the land for viable investment

opportunities.

One way in which the government will be looking at this will be through a tourism and investment conference to be held during the first week of November.

Members of government involved in the industry as well as the private sector will

be invited to attend the conference which will focus on investment opportunities in the tour

ism industry. “Although

we have a lot of state as well as customary land, a lot of it remains unused,”

Naitoro said. He said gov ernment was presently negotiating to buy land in

the central province of Nggela and Anuha and hoped to develop it into resorts. He said the tourism industry was still in its developmental stages and infrastructure was an integral part of this. Naitoro said the completion of the main Honiara roads would provide an important and essential contribution to

that development.

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The European Union is providing substantial aid for the completion of the road from Henderson Airport to White River west of Honiara and is funding the construction of the terminal.

“We would also like to provide incentives for local investment in setting up their own operations,” Naitoro said.

In that direction government has set up a scheme for people who want to build hotels. And provided they come up with

a good proposal they (government) will

provide subsidies.

“We have also set aside a budget of $2 million for small scale operations and we would like to maximise the participation

of the indigenous population and hope

that they realise that they only start on a certain scale particularly in the remote areas,” Naitoro said.

The November conference, Naitoro said, would provide an important forum for tourism investment. The government will produce a manual which will contain information on potential investment in tourism, access to land and will include a list of departments that potential investors will have to go to if they want to invest.

Naitoro said one of the reasons for the conference would be to attract potential investors who could provide the financial input to set up the appropriate infra structure. In the meantime, Naitoro said, the Ministry of Tourism would continue to work along the lines of what was already in place to provide incentives to attract people to the Solomon Islands.

In keeping with that Solomon Airlines will be offering a special two-month 40 per cent reduction in airfares from Australia and New Zealand. The minis try is also providing $700,000 for adver tising. “All these developments are keeping in line with and coinciding with promotions for Visit South Pacific Year 1995,” Naitoro said.

“One event that we are looking at promoting is the National Cultural Festival which will be held next July.

“We are also working with the Honi ara Town Council and are looking at involving a wider spectrum of the community in making it a VSPY ’95 town.” This, Naitoro said, would involve the churches, the council, non

governmental organisations and govern

ment. He said government was looking at things like litter control which was of great concern to government not only for the Visit Year but for the industry as a whole. A special dates committee has been set up to co-ordinate this. Other incentives for the community involve ment include exemption from govern ment taxes for taxi services. □

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