Road projectz tops Palau-US talks By Al Hulsen For Saipan Tribune

HONOLULU, Hawaii –– The status of construction plans for a 53-mile-long Babeldaop Island circle island road topped high-level bilateral talks between Representatives of the Republic of Palau and the United States at Honolulu-s East-West Center.

Palau President Kuniwo Nakamura and U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific, Ralph “Skip” Boyce, headed their respective teams of officials and advisors who engaged in a day-long discussion on the road project funded by Washington under the 15-year Compact of Free Association.

The collaboration, designed to promote economic self-sufficiency for the people if Palau, now is on its fifth year.

The Compact ring road, one part of attaining that goal, is designed to open up all of Babeldaop for development, particularly in the agricultural, fishing and tourism sectors.

Located across from the capital island of Koror, Babeldaop also accommodates Palau’s only international airport.

The State Department’s Country Officer for Palau, Theodore Pierce, who participated in the meeting, said Korean contractor Daewoo Corp. has started to move for actual construction of the multi-million-dollar road. Equipment is being brought in, construction teams are being organized and laborer camps are being built for what is expected to be a two to three-year project, he said.

Daewoo was selected for the project following an open international tender.

“We’re hoping by early January they’ll be in full swing and start breaking ground and begin construction of the road. It looks like the road project is well on track,” Mr. Pierce said.

Other major Palau construction projects, both of which involve Japanese funding, include rebuilding the Koror-Babeldaop Bridge, which collapsed following repairs in 1996, and the International Coral Reef Center.

The annual economic consultations, among other matters, also evaluated tourism development and the activity of Palau’s new national trust fund.

Mr. Pierce said, “Tourism declined, of course, with the Asian financial crisis but it now seems to be on the rebound. In particular, the last two or three months showed a marked increase over the same period last year.”

The trust fund has obtained its first donor and investments already are earning interest.

“We came out of this meeting,” Palau Country Officer Pierce said, “with a sense that the implementation of the Compact of Free Association is definitely on track and that the purposes and objectives of the Compact are proceeding apace without any major concerns.

“Everything seems to be pretty much on track. I think that’s the bottom line,” he said.