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Modest growth for South Pacific tourism
Pacific islands countries will have to work extra hard if they want to turn the regional tourism business into a multi-billion dollar industry, says south-pacific.travel CEO Tony Everitt.
His comment accompanied figures released by the organisation last month which showed modest growth in the region’s tourism industry.
The provisional figures showed that around 1.28 million people visited th region last year, up three percent from 2005, which leads the organisation to believe that tourism is on track to be a significant contributor to Pillar 1 of the Pacific Plan—economic growth.
“This modest growth demonstrates that overall, our region’s reputation in key markets is robust,” Everitt says.
“However, we cannot afford to be complacent. Some South Pacific destinations are having to work extra hard to attract visitors in 2007.
“We believe our industry has the potential to be contributing US$2 billion per annum to the region’s economy by 2010. But this will require a lot of hard work, commitment and investment in product development and marketing by both the private and public sectors.”
south-pacific dot travel is the re-branded name for what was originally South Pacific Tourism Organisation, a mandated inter-governmental body for the tourism sector in the South Pacific.
It recently went through a major overhaul, from which emerged a new brand name as well as an intended commercially responsive organisation, which has now taken an aggressive marketing approach that positions Pacific destinations to the global market, the emerging Asian markets in particular.
Figures it released showed visitor arrivals across 12 countries in the region totalled 1.239 million in 2006.
Negative growth was experienced by Fiji and Tonga while Samoa and Papua New Guinea registered double-digit growths.
south-pacific.travel had carried out analysis on the value of tourism to the region in 2005. The analysis conservatively estimated the sector’s value at about US$1 billion in 2000, from a little under one million international visitors. By 2004 the figures had grown to US$1.5 billion from about 1.2 million visitors.
“I have been surprised in my initial travels around the region to find that tourism is not a well understood sector. We believe we are the largest industry in the region, and certainly have the greatest sustainable growth potential,” says Everitt.
Coffee revival in East New Britain
Coffee, a crop dominant mainly in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, is generating a lot of interest in the island province of East New Britain (ENB).
So much so that East New Britain could become the first island province in PNG to qualify to export coffee directly to the world market, according to the Coffee Industry Corporation (CIC).
CIC chief executive, Ricky Mitio promised it would give free coffee export licences to ENB Coffee Growers Cooperative Association if all requirements to be an exporter are met by 2009. He made the commitment at the launch of the association and the opening of its headquarters at Toma recently.
Mitio said CIC is targeting East New Britain as a new growth centre for the expansion of the coffee industry because of its rich volcanic soil on which two types of coffee (Arabica and Robusta) can be grown.
He expressed confidence that ENB could plant one million trees that would produce 400 tonnes of coffee, generating a revenue of K2.8 million annually.
“These one million trees could produce 6800 bags of coffee which would qualify ENB to go into the world market.
CIC will help the association and the province to go into the world market by issuing two export licences—the green bean export licence and manufacturing licence.
He said the two licences would be given free by 2009 if the association meets all CIC requirements—build a central wet factory and dry processing factory that would cost K1.5 million.
ENB Coffee Growers Cooperative Association managing director, Vincent Toliman said many people in the province have turned to coffee growing as an alternative cash crop to cocoa and copra due to the unavailability of a proper buying port. Toliman said the coffee industry although neglected for many years is now being revived with the planting of 637,000 trees.
So far, he said, the association has made three shipments of coffee close to six tonnes to an exporting company in Lae while the other 10 tonnes are now being ready to be shipped anytime soon. The association is buying K3.50 per kilogramme for Robusta coffee and K3.00 for Arabica. He said most of his coffee farmers are from Pomio, Sinivit and Gazelle areas. The association buys 10 kilogrammes of coffee a day and this is likely to increase as the activity picks up.
Toliman said the association also opened its new nursery recently which would hold up to 50,000 seedlings of both Robusta and Arabica coffee and a new Robusta coffee called Omuru. —By Brian Tobia
Millions lost in money transfers
Pacific Islands people living abroad could be wasting millions of dollars by using costly methods of sending money home to relatives, a research shows.
A University of Waikato economist, John Gibson, has found local systems are expensive when compared with other migrant communities sending remittances to their countries of origin.
Professor Gibson said the costs were high for the most widely used methods of using bank drafts and money transfer companies such as Western Union.
He focused on the New Zealand to Tonga money corridor where typical transactions of transfers of about $200 could cost up to 20 percent of that amount.
Cheaper transfer methods were available such as setting up bank accounts in New Zealand so money could be accessed from island-based ATMs. Such transactions incurred costs of less than 5 percent but were not widely used. This 10 percentage point spread between the most popular and the cheapest remittance methods means a potential loss for Tonga equivalent of 4 percent of GDP, Gibson said.
Remittances comprised 39 percent of Tonga’s gross domestic product and were estimated to earn $600 million for the entire Pacific region—meaning it could be losing $60 million a year in avoidable transaction costs.
Illegal fishing a profitable venture
Papua New Guinea has discovered that illegal fishing by foreign vessels within its 200-mile economic zone limit can be a profitable venture.Last year, PNG National Fisheries Authority (NFA) reported that illegal fishing generated a total of K5.6 million for the country for the prosecution of illegal fishing vessels caught fishing in its EEZ. It predicts the number could increase this year.
Fisheries Minister, Ben Semri made the revelation at the launch of a fisheries credit facility in Port Moresby recently.
The facility will support a tuna tagging study and also provide opportunities for Papua New Guineans to obtain loans to set up small fishing projects.
Samoa’s permits
American Samoa’s Governor Togiola Tulafono has called Samoa’s entry permits for American Samoans a revenue generating permit.
He said the Samoa permits are not the same as American Samoa’s entry permits. The governor said many Samoan citizens went to American Samoa to earn a living and very few American Samoans go to Samoa with the intention of staying.
Meanwhile, American Samoa plans to conduct a study on its current available workforce to address the needs of proposed companies wishing to do business in Pago Pago. Governor Togiola said the proposed study was based on a request from companies looking to establish call centers in American Samoa once the territory is hooked up to the undersea fibre optic cable. According to the governor, the study would provide solid statistics on the available workforce, which includes the number of unemployed individuals.
Taxpayers owe US$6m
An Inland Revenue audit in the Solomon Islands has revealed that taxpayers still owe the government more than US$1 million for the year 2006. Acting Commissioner of the Inland Revenue Division of the Ministry of Finance, Ronnie Piva says the audit for last year assessed an additional income of US$1.61 million.
FFA’s new network
The Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) has built a regional communications network using Juniper Networks Secure Services Gateway (SSG) 20 appliances. The SSG 20 appliances will enable FFA to provide a standard communications framework connecting its member countries. The new system allows FFA to provide consistent network access to all its users, regardless of location, said Kyle Hurst, FFA’s manager of Vessel Monitoring Systems.
EU unwilling to think creatively: Keil
Europe’s highest-ranking trade official has claimed the entire African, Pacific and Caribbean (ACP) bloc is committed to reaching controversial free trade deals with the EU by the end of this year. But not everyone from the ACP group thinks so. Hans-Joachim Keil, commerce minister of Samoa and chairman of negotiators from the Pacific region, said the European Commission’s tactics amounted to repeating “rigid red lines and inflexible positions that do not reflect any genuine willingness to think creatively and arrive at a mutually acceptable solution that addresses the unique needs and circumstances (of the Pacific region)”.
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