Red carpet in Fiji

Press, 12 October 1976, Page 6

Red carpet in Fiji

From LES BLOXHAM Suva

Fiji showed its appreciation of New Zealand aid by rolling out the red carpet for the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon), when he arrived at Nausori Airport from Nandi yesterday.

He was welcomed by Fiji’s Deputy Prime Minister (Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau), in the absence of the Prime Minister (Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara) in New York. Afterwards, Mr Muldoon, accompanied by the Prime Minister of Western Samoa (Tupua Lealofi), and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands (Sir Albert Henry), reviewed a military guard of honour. Motor-cycle police escorted the leaders to Suva, 18 miles away, where Mr Muldoon will open the new headquarters for the South Pacific Bureau of Economic Cooperation this morning. "The building was built from New Zealand aid funds at a cost of about SIM,” said Mr Muldoon. He said that the Australian Government had given money for the furnishings.

“Great care has been taken to ensure that the building

[captures the intimacy and (spirit of the Pacific, underlining the fact that S.P.E.C. is a regional organisation serving the South Pacific,” he said.

This afternoon Mr Muldoon will attend a special meeting of the South Pacific forum, on the Law of the Sea, which is expected to complete a working agreement on administering the proposed new 200-mile territorial limits, and the problems and opportuni ties associated with them

The importance of the meeting is reflected by the list of delegates — the leaders of New Zealand. Western Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands, Nauru. Niue, the Gilbert Islands, Tuvalu (formerly the Ellice Islands), the Solmon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

Australia will be repre sented by its Minister of Foreign Affairs (Mr Peacock), and Fiij by its Deputy Prime Minister. One of the forum’s first jobs today will be to elect a chairman, and the feeling m diplomatic circles in Suva last evening was that Mr Muldoon is the man for the job.