Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0130/01304.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 28KB | 433 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01304}
$Pretitle{294D}
$Title{Fiji
Chapter 3.    Industry and Services}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Stephan B. Wickman}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{fijian
government
party
fiji
percent
alliance
indian
local
new
nfp}
$Date{1984}
$Log{}
Country:     Fiji
Book:        Oceania, An Area Study: Fiji
Author:      Stephan B. Wickman
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1984

Chapter 3.    Industry and Services

     The industrial sector depended greatly on Fiji's agriculture. The most
important industries were for processing sugarcane, copra, timber, and food.
The production of commercial energy from the nation's hydroelectric resources
has become more important than the small mining industry, which has been
able to export only limited quantities of gold. Even more significant for
employment and income has been the services sector, including transportation,
communications, and a host of commercial activities catering to the needs of
both the country's people and the many visiting tourists.

     Mining and Energy. Gold has been the principle commodity produced for
more than 45 years. The town of Vatukoula grew up around the Emperor Mine.
Production, however, dropped steadily in the 1970s, and only 88 kilograms
were produced for export in 1981. In 1982 the government renewed the mining
company's contract for another 21 years, and a second Australian-based firm
joined an expanded project. The new partner was helping the old company to
recover from some F $3 million in losses and to prospect about 6,000 hectares
of land next to the existing mine. Some 1,000 Fijian workers employed at the
mine had been hard hit by layoffs in the early 1980s.

     Besides a few quarrying operations, the only other mining activity has
been exploratory. Some prospecting for commercial quantities of copper was
being carried out near Suva in 1984. A Japanese consortium explored some
bauxite reserves but abandoned the work in 1974. No significant sources of
petroleum or mineral fuels have been discovered, although some 7,150
kilometers of survey work was finished during the 1969-70 period. Another
7,000 kilometers were surveyed using newer technology in the 1979-81 period,
often in the areas previously explored. Despite the occurrence of favorable
source rocks both onshore and offshore, the seven wells drilled have found
no recoverable reserves. The pace of the drilling efforts was slowing in the
1980s, and the poor results have discouraged foreign oil companies. If
discoveries were to be made, most observers believed the drilling would
have to go much deeper than before, to 3,000 to 5,000 meters.

     The lack of domestic supplies of hydrocarbons has made the country
extremely dependent on imported energy. In 1982 oil imports for domestic use
totaled 397,000 tons; this volume accounted for 43 percent of the energy
produced that year. Coal imports have been a minor source of energy, but
domestically produced fuelwood and bagasse (sugarcane husks) made up more than
one-half of the energy supplied. The fuelwood was mostly burned in the rural
areas for home cooking or copra drying; some was converted to charcoal for
sale in the urban areas. The sugarcane mills burned bagasse to produce
electricity for their milling operations and even solid some overflow to the
public utility. The government regulated the prices of commercial energy but
generally allowed increased import prices to be passed on to the consumers. As
a result, oil consumption declined by about 2 percent per year during the
1975-82 period.

     Oil consumption was expected to drop dramatically after the completion of
new facilities for producing electricity, the major form of oil energy. The
government utility, the Fiji Electricity Authority (FEA), produced about 95
percent of the nation's electricity in 1982 on the islands of Viti Levu, Vanua
Levu, and Ovalau. The installed capacity was 85 megawatts, the chief load
centers being Suva, Lautoka, Nadi, Labasa, Savusavu, and Levuka. In late 1983,
however, the first stage in the country's most important development project
ever, the Monasavu Hydroelectric Scheme, was completed. Located high in the
Nadrau Plateau, the F $220 million project would eventually have an installed
capacity of 80 megawatts-enough to supply the country's needs through the
early 1990s. Although initially the power project would have twice the needed
capacity, it would still be less expensive than importing diesel fuel and
would reduce the nation's import bill by some 60 percent at a saving of about
F $18 million per year. The only drawback to the successful completion of the
project was the prospect of discharging the more than 7,000 workers who have
built the facilities on difficult terrain. After two years of delay, the
project was expected to be fully completed by 1985, when it would be able to
produce 400 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, about 190 million
kilowatt-hours more than projected domestic consumption. Other proved areas
for hydro-electric development on Viti Levu, which were under investigation
in 1984, totaled more than 1,600 megawatts of capacity.

     Vanua Levu and the smaller islands required different kinds of facilities
than Viti Levu. Small-scale hydroelectric sites were under investigation on
Vanua Levu and Taveuni, and the FEA has programmed the construction of a dam
to serve Labasa. In addition to supplies from the nearby sugar mill, the local
sawmills and planned wood-processing plants might be able to burn their waste
to add electricity to the system. In the outlying areas solar power generators
have been installed to run the government-owned telecommunications equipment.
Rural residents were poorly served by the existing system; whereas one-half of
the homes in the urban and suburban areas had electrical connections in 1982,
only one-fourth of those in the rural areas received electricity. The FEA,
which had responsibility only for the major islands, was adding about 2,000
new connections each year. The Public Works Department was in charge of
installing small generators in the outlying islands and had set up eight
diesel plants serving 4,000 people during the 1978-82 period. The government
estimated that 80,000 additional connections would be required to cover the
entire country. The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources has been in
charge of the country's energy plans.

     Transportation and Communications. Roads have become the most important
means of transportation on the main islands; a 500-kilometer highway roughly
encircled Viti Levu in 1981. Altogether there were about 3,300 kilometers of
roads in Fiji in 1981, of which some 1,200 had all-weather surfaces. About
400 kilometers of highway, including the resurfaced road from Nadi to Suva,
had asphalt surfaces. In 1981 there were 22,000 private cars, some 16,400
trucks, about 3,500 taxis and rental cars, over 1,100 buses, some 3,400
tractors, and 2,400 motorcycles licensed for use.

     Interisland shipping has been taken over by barges towed by tugs; the
Marine Department has also allowed passengers to ride its ships. The main
port of entry, Suva, handled more than 750 foreign and 650 local vessels in
1981. Lautoka, which opened a new wharf the year before, served 322 foreign
and 126 domestic ships. The other port of entry, at Levuka, primarily served
fishing fleets. In 1981 the local shipping fleets included 234 vessels
totaling 19,500 gross registered tons.

     Air transportation has become increasingly important for the tourist
industry and for interisland traffic. Air Pacific, the official international
carrier, maintained a fleet of three jet and four propeller aircraft in 1981,
which flew in and out of the expanded international airport at Nadi. The
government owned about three-quarters of the company, which has suffered
yearly losses. Fiji Air, a private concern previously owned by Air Pacific,
had a fleet of six small aircraft that served some 13 local airports.

     All 725 kilometers of permanent 0.