Niue is planning to ask Singapore for ideas on how to develop its economy.
Its among some of premier Sir Toke Talagi's plans for his fourth term government.
He says money's being sought to fix infrastructure like aging transformers and inefficient water pipes and the roads will be fixed by China starting end of next year.
Sir Toke told Sally Round he wants to see more commercialization and there are plans afoot to address the labour shortage.
Photo: RNZI/Sally Round
Transcript
SIR TOKE TALAGI: We're looking at whether we can see if we can improve on the revenue from our sovereign resources and at the present moment, I'm pretty confident that we can maintain what we have or perhaps get slight increases from some of those. We'd like to continue looking at the export of water and looking at our fisheries as well as some of the other things we could generate money from. In the end the idea is, if over the next three years, we can raise revenue through our own efforts - revenue of say five to 10 million dollars - then I'll be very, very happy. We've already achieved I think about four million dollars so far so we're looking at about a six million dollar revenue stream. We're hoping that perhaps water or the fisheries will be able to generate for us some money. But at the same time we're also looking to, for example, ask the Singaporean government to come here and have a look at what we're doing and advise us as to what they believe we could possibly do to improve our revenue from the sources we have that we can't see at the present moment.
SALLY ROUND: Why Singapore?
TT: Simply because of what they have done. The Singaporeans for example were left to their own devices very early on as they've had to go from where they were to where they are now, they've become a very, very dynamic economic force.
SR: You've got a shortage of labour there on Niue. How are you going to address that issue?
TT: I've talked to the private sector, the Niue Chamber of Commerce and advised them that what I'd like to see happening in the next six months or so is to get them to tell us what their requirements are. The people that we will bring in will be people that they themselves will agree to before we bring them.
SR: How many do you think? What numbers are you envisaging bringing in?
TT: I've told them to go away and come back to me with the numbers because I don't know. All I knew is that individually people say that they're short so I said well you've got to go and find out exactly what you need and we'll work through the process of trying to get the labour and pay for them to come, house them but they will pay for that out of the wages the private sector people will pay them.
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