Call for increased U.S. aid to Pacific

Press, 10 March 1984, Page 8

Call for increased U.S. aid to Pacific

NZPA staff correspodent Washington The Prime Minister, Sir Robert Muldoon, in Hawaii yesterday called for increased United States economic aid to the small Island nations of the South Pacific. Sir Robert told NZPA that in speaking with various groups he was pointing out the danger of offers of similar aid from the Soviet Union, designed to lead to a strategic foothold in the South Pacific. Linked to this, he said, was the issue of tuna fishing licences for American companies in the extended economic zones of the Pacific Island nations. The Americans had made some “quite forthcoming moves” to try to reach arrangements on tuna fish-

ing with island States, one by one, he said. Sir Robert said he was trying to dispel the prevalent American notion that there was no need for increased aid in the South Pacific because the Governments there were politically stable and pro-Western. “The fact of the matter is that some of these countries are not only not economically viable, but their overall standard of living is among the lowest in the world,” he said. Sir Robert would arrive home as a “jet-lagged Jeremiah of international commerce,” said the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Lange yesterday. , Sir Robert is due at Auckland tomorrow after a month overseas, where he has acknowledged a scaling-

down of his campaign for world economic reform. ' Mr Lange said that New Zealand should remember that Sir Robert for three years had “made a profession out of predicting disaster for the world economy.” “The grandstanding that has gone on now clearly is for domestic consumption. No-one abroad has swallowed it,” he said. “If you are talking about deficits for developing countries you do nor have to answer the claims that you have increased New Zealand’s public debt from $5.5 billion to $25 billion in BVz years.” The position of developing countries had improved dramatically in the last two years. Their deficits fell from $lOl billion in 1981 to $67 billion in 1983.