Fewer tourists, less remittances, weak economy

Written by Mathew Lemisio
Wednesday, 23 January 2008
*Life continues for this taro planter trying to sell his produce at the Fugalei market* Samoa’s economic performance for the month of November of last year has been described as “weak” by a report compiled by the Central Bank of Samoa. The report showcases the country’s economic performance during November 2007. It was released on the 10th of this month. The weakness in the country’s economy during that period was due to several factors such as the increase in merchandise trade deficit and decrease in both tourist arrivals and private remittances. “[This} all contributed to this month’s weak position,” the report stated. It went on to say that, “the current level of official gross foreign reserves fell .3 percent to $212.9 million in the month under review, sufficient to cover 4.3 months of imports.” Despite all this, Prime Minister Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Sailele Malielegaoi had told Parliament last week that Samoa’s economy had grown 4.5 percent with a GDP of $1.3billion. He said the government is forecasting a further economic growth in the coming years. Meanwhile, the report has stated an amount of $SAT3.5 worth of revenue could not be collected by the country’s tourism industry due to 5% decline of tourist arrivals for November. “As a result, tourism revenue decreased 16 percent ($3.5million) to $17.9 million, a level that was also 7 percent ($1.4million) lower than that in November 2006,” the report revealed. An increase of 17% however of tourist arrivals to Samoa was recorded in the first five months of 2007/2008. “…[this is] mainly due to the increased earnings received during the hosting of the 13th South Pacific Games…” This supports what deputy prime minister, Misa Telefoni said in Parliament about the increasing number of foreign tourists occupying up to one quarter of flights coming to Samoa, which were usually dominated by “our own people”. Meantime, the Central Bank report also recorded a 4 percent decrease or $1.2million worth of private remittances during the same period. “Provisional estimates for private remittances showed a 4 percent ($1.2million) decrease to $26.3 million in the month under review.” However the report went further to state that although the 4 percent for November 2007 was recorded, it was still 44 percent higher than the amount of private remittances received in the same period of 2006. This contributes to a 54 percent or $47.5 million “surge” in total private remittances in the first five months of 2007/2008. Comments (0) Subscribe to this comment's feed Write comment Name Email Title Comment

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