Guinea Optimistic About New Plan; Quiet On Old

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30578, 22 October 1964, Page 6

Guinea Optimistic About New Plan; Quiet On Old

(N.Z.P.A .-Rtuter— Copyright) CONAKRY, Guinea, President Sekou Toure’s Government is saying almost nothing about its first threeyear economic plan, which has just come to an end. But it is optimistic about a seven-year plan, due to be Launched next year. The Government will use the lessons of the first plan to help the second one achieve more success. It is no secret that the first plan fell short of its targets. Although the £65,000,000 plan received an enthusiastic inauguration in 1960, it wound up in almost complete silence. Now the Government is conducting a detailed study of what went wrong. Questionnaires have been sent to alii the administrative regions to collect essential data about the young Republics most pressing needs. Guinea, a former French African possession which accepts economic aid from both Western and Communist countries, recognised at the start that the independence path would not be an easy one. President Toure declared the first plan was to some extent experimental and should be modified as experience indicated. Guineans say: "This was our first draft for progress: it may have been over-ambit-ious but it served Its purpose as an incentive, a national rallying point,” It is difficult to make a satisfactory assessment of the Three Year Plan's achievements. Statistics are rarely

published. Radio Conakry said it would leave the sum-ming-up to the experts. There is, nevertheless, a certain amount of visible evidence, and some unofficial figures are available. Gineau now has a 100-kilo-watit radio transmitter, a refrigeration plant at the port of Conakry, a two-mile jet runway and a national airline —all Russian aid projects. From East Germany there is a large printing plant. Several construction projects are still unfinished: the Russian-added 1500-student polytechnic, a 25,000-seet sports stadium and a 120room hotel, and the East German open-air theatre. Two other large projects, now nearing completion, are improving the conditions for future industrialisation. A Jugoslav earth dam and extra generators will double the available electricity (10,000 to 20,000 kilowatts), and a new 88-mile pipeline, financed by a West German credit, will provide Conakry with a constant water supply throughout the year. The Port of Conakry has been improved by Dutch and Egyptian dredging operations. Several hundred miles of new roads—packed earth in the interior, some surfaced ones in the capital—are reported to have been completed. A small group of West German army engineers has been showing Guinean army units how to build concrete roads.