The news that there will now be a delay in the planned relocation of United States troops from Okinawa to Guam may actually be good news for the Pacific Islands region. 

Soon after the biggest ever infrastructure project in the Pacific region—the construction of the new United States’ armed forces base in Guam—began to gain momentum with a series of announcements from the United States government last year, this magazine had highlighted the great opportunities that lay in store for both Pacific islands businesses, professionals and workers.

The relocation of about 8000 troops from Okinawa to Guam has been planned for completion by the middle of the next decade. In preparation for this massive logistics exercise, the scale of which at least this region has never seen before, the United States and Japan are investing a whopping US$15 billion over the next six to seven years.

The plan not only includes the building and construction of military infrastructure but also civilian facilities to house the troops and their families that will have residential buildings, schools, hospitals, roads, telecommunication, power and energy infrastructure besides a host of other conveniences considered essential for modern living.

Despite the knowledge that such a project was expected to come up in the region, the Pacific Islands have been grossly under prepared for turning this gigantic, once in a lifetime opportunity into an advantage for its people. Their governments have so far failed to respond to this unfolding event by not coming up with any strategy to get benefits from it for their people.

Though much of the big ticket sub-projects will doubtless go to United States-based contractors simply because of their scale and the American contractors’ considerable muscle and experience in handling such assignments elsewhere in the world, the United States has committed that a certain portion of subcontracts would be awarded within the region. Besides, the thousands of workers that would be needed for the projects would have to come from the region for reasons of both costs and logistics.

Both New Zealand and Australia responded quickly to these developments and they have already begun negotiations for several subcontracts and sub-projects in Guam.

One Kiwi industrialist is reported to have said that even a small sub project for a New Zealand company would be big enough to put food on the table for several thousand Kiwis for years. That indeed is the scale of the Guam project.

That industrialist and others at a seminar in Auckland some months ago also expressed hope they would be able to hire some of their workforce from the Pacific islands region because of lower cost implications and as an avenue to boost their economies.

But they also expressed that there simply was no way they could do this in a systematic manner because of the lack of information on how to do this as well as not knowing what talent and experience was available in which islands countries.

It was easier to find skilled and semi skilled workers in the Asian Pacific rim countries like the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand because there was a mechanism to find such employees and hire them in those countries, one of the industrialists said.

In an earlier opinion piece, this magazine had suggested that the Pacific Islands Forum needed take the lead in fronting up for the islands not only for landing small projects from Guam for the islands’ businesses but also to place islanders in employment by compiling a database of people and skills that can then be matched with specific requirements of the Guam projects’ contractors and subcontractors.

The project is now delayed—obviously because of the effect of the great global financial downturn. The United States government is on a belt-tightening spree and it is understandable it will have to prioritise spending which is bound to put mega projects like Guam on the back burner, however temporarily. But it will not be relegated to the background for long because it is extremely important for the United States from the point of view of its geopolitical strategy and security.

This delay is blessing in disguise for the islands. They can now turn in right earnest to the task of compiling databases of people, their qualifications, certifications and skills—particularly in the engineering and construction sector—and put all of it up online for easy access by project managers and their recruiters in time for when activity on the project restarts, hopefully not very long from now.

As well as skilled workers in engineering and construction, there will also be a host of other skilled workers needed for peripheral projects. These could be medical and paramedical staff, nurses, teachers, vehicle drivers and suchlike—after all, it’s a whole new township that is being built there.

It is good to note that the Forum Secretariat has taken a serious note of this and plans to build a register of people and skills across its member islands nations.

It is also hoped the Forum will take the lead in fronting up for the islands collectively with the United States Government and its agencies because it would be too daunting for individual islands nation to do so.

It must also utilise this delay to work with islands governments and the governments of Australia and New Zealand to upskill workers with training programmes and apprenticeships—particularly with companies that have already landed projects in Guam or are likely to bag them once project activity restarts there. This could well turn out to be a win-win situation for both workers and the companies.

The Forum would also do well to coordinate with the United States authorities to obtain a list of jobs and skills their project managers are likely to hire from the islands and accordingly initiate trades-based training programmes at national and regional institutions like Fiji’s Fiji Institute of Technology and other polytechnics around the region—or even for that matter the Australian Technical School and even the University of the South Pacific.

The delay is indeed a great opportunity for the islands to get their act together and get ready for all the action when this mega project restarts.