Multi-million dollar plant approved for American Samoa

Transcript

A 106-millon US dollar food processing plant in American Samoa is scheduled to be up and running by July.

The government has approved plans by Filipino company AVM Bernardo Engineering to build a plant at Tafuna Industrial Park near the airport.

Our correspondent Monica Miller says told Koro Vaka'uta the project the company has been looking at the territory for a while.

MONICA MILLER:  They've been very persistent because they first floated plans to come and run one of the canneries that closed down, this is way back in 2009 is when the cannery closed Samoa Packing, and they've been trying to set up here and have been courting the American Samoa government.  AVM Bernardo Engineering, initially they hope to start with fish-based products and then go into meat processing as well and other food items.  The American Samoan government sent a delegation of government leaders to the Philippines last month and they came back and said that this company is of good standing and very well respected in the Philippines.  The governor has just been given the due diligence report and he mentioned in his State of the Territory address that everything checks out with this company and they hope to break ground this month.

KORO VAKA'UTA:  How will this look to benefit the territory with jobs, employment, economically, what are the benefits?

MM:  They hope to hire initially about 700 people and so this is certainly good news for the American Samoa government and the territory because really since the Samoa Packing closed down in 2009 we really haven't had any major investment in the territory except for the Samoa Tuna processing plant that is going to be opened and that is supposed to generate maybe about a thousand or so jobs so this will certainly give a boost to the American Samoa economy.

KV:  And in terms of, I know it's early days, but feeling on the ground, what's been the response to this news?

MM:  Because this company is not a US company you hear people saying they really have to check out that they are going to abide by US regulations with regards to quality and hygiene and all that which any manufacturer that exports to the United States will have to abide by.  The company has in fact, it has a record of also exporting overseas so they have said that the stringent regulations of the Americans will be followed.  Then there are also people who say hey any kind of investment in the territory will be welcomed and as long as environmental laws are being followed, as long as all the regulations of American Samoa and United States are followed then they should be given the go-ahead.  There are also concerns that this company should not be allowed to bring in a lot of workers from the Philippines.  The company has said that they will only bring in the expertise, the technical side of things and then they will phase them out but there are sceptics who say that is always the promise at the start then we end up with a lot of foreigners.