Vanuatu urged to diversify economy

Transcript

An academic says Vanuatu needs to diversify its tourism dependent economy in order to make it more inclusive.

The founder of Devpacific Thinknet, Tess Newton Cain, says while the industry contributes to 64 percent of GDP, most of this development is centered around the capital, Port Vila.

Dr Newton Cain told Koroi Hawkins the destruction caused by Cyclone Pam in March highlights the geographic and economic isolation of rural communities within Vanuatu's economy.

TESS NEWTON CAIN: We basically said that Vanuatu shouldn't be looking to diversify its economy in terms of getting involved in mining or some other form of activity. That tourism is still going to be a central part of what Vanuatu does in terms of economic output. But what we need to see and what government needs to be thinking about is how to grow the economy in a way that makes it more inclusive. At the moment a lot of the opportunities related to tourism are centered around Port Vila and what we need to see is better linkages. Whether it is getting more tourists to go to places other than Port Vila that is one way of making the economy more inclusive. And other ways are by increasing the linkages between the tourism industry where it is and providers elsewhere. Whether that is by way of increasing local procurement of agricultural products or local procurement of handicrafts to sell to tourists. So there are a number of ways that we can create perhaps a variegated economy in which those linkages are built so that more people feel that they are benefiting from the tourism even if they are not necessarily getting more tourists going to where they live.

KOROI HAWKINS: And of course in recent times the effect of Cyclone Pam on Vanuatu's economy how does that all fit into where Vanuatu is now and what needs to be done in its recovery. Are they even placed to start to look at diversifying or are they just in reconstruction mode for the time being?

TNC: Well I think obviously we are at now the end of the humanitarian response phase of post cyclone Pam activity, then we moving into recovery and reconstruction and there needs obviously there is going to be a lot of priority placed on rebuilding of schools of homes, medical centers and other critical infrastructure. I guess the reason that Matt and I wanted to sort of start this conversation was to say that you know there is an opportunity whilst these other things are going on to think about how can we factor in the future development to what happens now. So rather than you know doing all the development and then thinking about economic development. There may well be opportunities to think about how the reconstruction activities can start to promote those economic recovery activities.