SOUTH PACIFIC COMMISSION

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27192, 9 November 1953, Page 6

SOUTH PACIFIC COMMISSION

PRIORITY GIVEN TO 16 PROJECTS EARLY RESULTS SOUGHT FROM COMPLETION (New Zealana Press Association) WELLINGTON, November 7. Bather than diffuse its efforts over an extended field the South Pacific Commission has decided to concentrate on the fulfilment of 16 of the 50 or so projects it has in hand. It has selected the projects likely to show the quickest results in the development of the peoples in its care. Mr D. S. Reid, of the Department of Island Territories, who returned to Wellington from Sydney this week, after attending the twelfth session of the commission in Noumea last month, said today that the commission would not abandon the other projects it had planned when first formed, but would focus its attention on those work programmes which would increase the production of goods and services by the inhabitants of a particular region, increase the efficiency of.the Pacific people in their life and work, and increase the participation of the islanders in the life and development of their own communities, Mr Reid said.

Health, education, nutrition, the coconut, rice and fishing industries, pests mosquito-borne, and other diseases, plant introduction, and subsistence economics, were matters for attention. Mr 'Reid said control of the rhinoceros beetle, in which the territories under New Zealand control were vitally interested, was one of the problems being given priority by the commission. It was expected that £7BOO would be spent on research and other work in connexion with control of the beetle next year. Training Centre The establishment of a vocational training centre for the peoples under the commission’s control would also receive immediate attention, though it was likely to be available mainly to peoples in territories administered by Britain, the United States, and NewZealand. The other Governments represented on the commission— France, the Netherlands, and Australia—were not particularly interested in the scheme, mainly in the case of France and Holland because of language difficulties, Mr Reid said. The Government of Fiji had offered facilities for the interested governments to hold talks in Suva to decide their future action op the establishment of the centre.

Altogether, he added, the commission needed £207,140 to carry out its work programme and general administration next year. New Zealand would contribute 15 per cent, of this figure.