{"id":259973,"date":"2021-08-01T22:20:46","date_gmt":"2021-08-01T22:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/?p=61316"},"modified":"2021-08-01T22:20:46","modified_gmt":"2021-08-01T22:20:46","slug":"samoa-confirms-china-backed-vaiusu-bay-port-project-shelved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/08\/01\/samoa-confirms-china-backed-vaiusu-bay-port-project-shelved\/","title":{"rendered":"Samoa confirms China-backed Vaiusu Bay port project shelved"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/international\/pacific-news\/\"><em>RNZ Pacific<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Samoa&#8217;s new prime minister has opted not to proceed with a China-backed port development project championed by her predecessor.<\/p>\n<p>Fiame Naomi Mata&#8217;afa said the US$100 million (NZ$139m) project would have significantly added to the country&#8217;s exposure to China which already accounts for 40 percent of its external debt.<\/p>\n<p>The proposed construction in Vaiusu Bay has been a divisive issue in Samoa, playing a part in April&#8217;s national election where long-serving leader Tuila&#8217;epa Sa&#8217;ilele Malielegaoi lost his parliamentary majority.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.samoaobserver.ws\/category\/editorial\/78501\"><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> The deficiencies of the Vaiusu wharf development &#8211; <em>Samoa Observer<\/em><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>After a protracted impasse following the election, in which Tuila&#8217;epa&#8217;s HRPP administration refused to concede defeat until legal avenues were exhausted, the new government of Fiame&#8217;s Fa&#8217;atuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST) party was confirmed late last month.<\/p>\n<p>The Vaiusu Bay port project was one of the early items on the FAST government&#8217;s agenda.<\/p>\n<p>According to Fiame, the project would increase debt exposure to China by 70 percent.<\/p>\n<p>She said government officials confirmed last week the project had not gone beyond feasability testing and that it exceeded Samoa&#8217;s requirement.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8216;Not a priority&#8217;<\/strong><br \/>\n&#8220;We&#8217;ve indicated to Foreign Affairs that this would not be a priority with our government, and since we haven&#8217;t made any firm commitments, that we should leave it at that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She said the cancellation of a key China-funded maritime port project would not hinder the strong relationship with Beijing.<\/p>\n<p>Fiame said the investment was a sizeable one for any government, including China, and she had serious reservations about that level of commitment.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It could have been any other donor. So just on the pure numbers and also in terms of the priorities of our government, it is not a priority to us. And thank goodness the negotiation had not arrived at the point where our government has signed on any dotted line.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Fiame said the door remained open to Beijing and all aid partners for future projects of clear benefit to Samoa.<\/p>\n<p><em>This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\"><br>\r\nThis content originally appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/2021\/08\/02\/samoa-confirms-china-backed-vaiusu-bay-port-project-shelved\/\" >Asia Pacific Report<\/a> and was authored by APR editor.  <br><\/p>\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/2021\/08\/01\/samoa-confirms-china-backed-vaiusu-bay-port-project-shelved\/\">Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>RNZ Pacific Samoa\u2019s new prime minister has opted not to proceed with a China-backed port development project championed by her predecessor. Fiame Naomi Mata\u2019afa said the US$100 million (NZ$139m) project would have significantly added to the country\u2019s exposure to China which already accounts for 40 percent of its external debt. The proposed construction in Vaiusu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":400,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27617,190,363,20036,5,22420,4630,12,14,18603,32934,368,611,27150,2295,32935],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259973"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/400"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259973"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":259992,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259973\/revisions\/259992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}