Tuna Breeding Farm Project For Atoll On Right Track ff

An approximately two billion French Pacific franc (US$20.85 million/€16.8 million) tuna breeding farm project for the Tuamotu atoll of Hao appears to be on the right track, indicated Hao Mayor Temauri Foster to Tahiti news sources.

Foster based his optimism on last week’s visit to Hao by the Temaru government’s sea minister, Keitapu Maamaatuaiahutapu and a scheduled meeting in Paris on Jan. 18 with the Direction Générale des Impots, the equivalent of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

The aim of the Paris meeting is for Tahiti’s government to obtain a tax exemption for the project, named “Haopa”, which will cost between 1.5 billion and 2 billion French Pacific francs to get it off the ground.

According to Foster, the latest word from Paris is reportedly favorable. That means, he said, the project could get underway rather soon. “If we obtain the tax exemption, we will start at once. We’re ready,” Foster said.

The proposed financing plan for the project calls for an 8% participation by Tahiti’s government and a 5% investment by some of the 1,500 people living on Hao, which is located 920 km (572 miles) almost due east from Tahiti.

”The people are going to create an association or a civil company that will benefit from a subsidy” of 30 million French Pacific francs (US$312,825 million/€251,400) that has already been included in the government’s 2006 budget, Foster said.

The rest of the investors, notably from France, Japan and local companies, will put up the remaining 87% of the necessary investment funds, Foster said.

Although objections based on scientific and technical factors have been voiced about the project, the mayor of Hao claims there are no grounds for such objections. “Many specialists went to Hao to make feasibility studies and they think that it was completely feasible.”

For the small atoll of some 1,500 people, the Haopa project would create direct employment for some 100 people and indirect jobs for another 80 people over the first three years of its development, according to Foster.

”That would provide a real breath of oxygen for the people,” he said. “Since the departure of the CEP, the residents have found themselves without anything. We have the impression of living 20 years behind the time and the people are waiting for something to arrive.”

Foster's mention of the CEP was a reference to the 30-year French nuclear testing program conducted by the Pacific Testing Center on the distant and remote Tuamotu atolls of Moruroa and Fangataufa. Hao served as a French military outpost during the nuclear testing period from 1966-1996. Among the remaining French infrastructures is the airport runway, which is big enough to handle today’s big passenger planes.

There are also some political implications involved in the tuna-breeding project for Hao. Last year Foster left the opposition party of former French Polynesia President Gaston Flosse to become an unaligned member of the 57-member French Polynesia Assembly.

Foster’s move to the unaligned ranks followed French Polynesia President Oscar Temaru’s commitment to the realization of the Hao project.