The Department of Trade and Industry of the Vanuatu Government approved in principle an Industrial and Free Trade Zone development on Santo over 30 years ago, however unfortunately this development never proceeded.
 

Initiative of the Santo Free Trade Zone by the Department of Trade of the Vanuatu Government was in 1985 and has been on the agenda for the country’s development for many years thereafter.

 

The Eco-Industrial Park

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The Development of the Eco-Industrial Park Policy was instituted and completed between January and June 2016.
 

The Eco-Industrial Park Policy was approved in September 2016 COM decision 144 of 2016.
 

A Eco-Industrial Park Working Committee was appointed by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Trade, Honourable Joe Natuman on 21 December 2016.

 

The first meeting was held on Friday 3 March 2017
 

The committee members were represented from the following Departments: 

• Department of Trade and Industry

• Vanuatu Investment Promotion Authority

• Internal Affairs

• Customs & Excise

• Lands Department

• DOA/Physical Planning Unit

• Senior Planning Officer of the Sanma Province

• Public Works and the Santo Free Trade Zone Developer
   

12 committee members in total

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All Representatives of the Eco-Industrial Park Working Committee voted unanimously for the approval of and to proceed with, the Santo Free Trade Zone as a first project under the COM decision.

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Main Wharf in Luganville

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Funded by Chinese Government through Concessional Loan, the Project of Rehabilitation and Extension of Luganville Main Wharf started on July 28 2015 and was contracted by the Shanghai Construction Group and cost of USD $80.56 million

The upgrade and construction of the main wharf in Luganville, Santo has now enabled this project to proceed for the benefit of Santo and in particular - great opportunities for employment. It is expected that between 1,000 and 2,000 workers or more will be employed in the Santo Free Trade Zone in the next 2 to 4 years.

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The wharf was constructed by the Shanghai Construction Company and opened with fanfare in the middle of last year. The Chinese ambassador, Liu Quan, reportedly handed keys to Vanuatu's Prime Minister Charlot Salwai during a ribbon cutting ceremony.

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 The new rehabilitation and extension of Port Luganville Main wharf is a commercial port that usually on average handles closed to 100,000 tons of freight annually (around 82 boats including tankers and 17 tourist boats arrive in 2012). The proposed port is accessible to existing tarsal roads and located around 1 kilometer to Luganville town.

Significant growth in the handling of the port’s primary commodities, as well as the expansion of the types of commodities received, is currently limited by the main wharf’s size and the damage wharf structure due to natural disasters. Recently the port has been approached by various tourism stakeholders (Luganville Tourism association) in improving the wharf’s deteriorating conditions in order to encourage more large tonnage capacity tourist boats to the ports.

The current length of the ports’ longest wharf is 270 meters and is insufficient for providing full service for all cargo currently served and tourist boat arrivals due to wharf berth space availability. In addition, new business that require the ability to transfer certain heavy cargo off large vessels and into trucks cannot currently be served, due to the physical conditions of the wharf. The proposed rehabilitation and extension of Port Luganville main wharf project would lengthen the existing wharf at the port by 231 meters east towards samanson wharf with total length of berth at 361 meter, providing the opportunity to better serve existing customers and potentially expand customer base.

The total cost of the proposed project would be around US 93.4 million dollars equivalent to VT 8,840 million Loan provided by bank of china as a soft loan to the Vanuatu Government with 2 percent interest with repayment over a period of 22 years including grace period of 5 years. The Benefit-Cost Analysis described in the following sections estimates the benefits and cost associated with the proposed infrastructure improvement. The construction work will be undertaken by a Chinese company (Shanghai Construction Group) schedule to commence in June 2014 and ends in June 2017, a period of 3 years.

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the 360-meter-long Luganville wharf in Vanuatu