US asked to relax shipment restrictions

By Ed Rampell

THE United States has been asked to relax restrictions that prevent shipment to,

and transshipment

through America of Pacific Island grown vegetables like eggplants and fruits such as papaya and mango.

Honolulu-based Pacific Islands Development Programme director Sitiveni Halapua said the issue was brought up dur ing a recent meeting of the US-Pacific Joint Commercial Commission in Hawaii.

Fear of fruit fly contamination currently hinders transport of Pacific produce to the North American market.

Graeme Thorpe, Managing Director of Balthan International (Fiji) Limited, a Suva import-export firm, said that the stringent requirements not only prevent shipping of Fiji products to the US, but also stop him from transshipping produce via Hawaii or the West Coast to Canada, which does not ban these imports.

Thorpe told JCC that Fiji’s developing economy faces a loss of $ 1 million per year and 500 jobs, due to the restrictive regula tions. (The Asian economic crisis caused cancellation of Fiji-South Korea-Candada Bights).

Thorpe requested that the US approve use of a high temperature forced air treat ment system designed to get rid of fruit flies that was developed in Hawaii. Glen

Hinsdale, who attended the JCC meeting on behalf of the US Department of Agriculture, said the US would look into the matter before JCC’s next meeting in a year.

Halapua said “JCC decided to hold a workshop... to identify potential business partners and trade opportunities between the Pacific Islands and US”.

Participants would include Terry Buckley, Director of South Pacific Operations of Cost-U-Less (a US dis counter similar to Costco, which has two stores in Fiji and plans to open one in Tahiti), Robert Colson, president of a ship ping company, and Hinsdale from the US government side.

The PIDP director was bullish about 1998’s Hawaii Business Conference, co hosted by PIDP, Outrigger Hotels & Resorts, Bank of Hawaii, and the State of Hawaii’s Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism.

Attended by more than 150 participants.

Dr. Halapua indicated that business connec tions were made regarding orchids, kava, tourist submarine viewing, alternative ener gy, hotel development, handicrafts, and more.

PIDP is the secretariat for the Pacific Island Conference of Leaders whose theme for a tri-annual PICL meeting this year will be Managing Globalization for Sustainable Development the Pacific Way.

Halapua also said the PICL standing committee directed PIDP to develop a new

“strategic plan” for PIDP. And, for the first time in PIDP’s 20 year history, the standing committee told PIDP to create “a memoran dum of understanding between the East- West Center and the Pacific leaders, defin ing exactly what their relationship and mutual obligations are.” Other important points also came out of the confabs.

According to A 1 Hulsen, Managing

Editor of the Pacific Island Report

(http://pidp.ewc.hawaii.edu./PlReport/), the

cutback of regional aid, decline in funding of the Marshalls and FSM’s Compacts of Free Association, and Asian economic woes, led the Island heads to look into “how they can benefit from their own natural resources - 95 percent of the fisheries goes out of the region. How can Pacific Island fisheries benefit the islands?”

Hulsen also said the leaders discussed “control of Pacific corridors, charging fly over fees for the rights [of carriers] to go through their air space.”

The potential wealth of the sea bed, such as manganese nodules, was also discussed, he said. Although many isles have small land bases, with their Exclusive Economic Zones, some cover vast stretches of the Pacific. And in the Standing Committee’s Communique, it was proposed that a Pacific Islands trade office be established in the US. Members also paid their final respects to the Father Walter Lini, former PM of Vanuatu, and to Bailey Olter, former FSM president. ■