The economy of
Samoa
Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa; sm, Sāmoa, and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu); two smaller, inhabited islands (Manono Island, Manono an ...
is dependent on agricultural exports,
development aid
Development aid is a type of aid, foreign/international/overseas aid given by governments and other agencies to support the economic, environmental, social, and political International development, development of developing countries. Closely-rel ...
and private financing from overseas. The country is vulnerable to devastating storms. Agriculture employs two-thirds of the labor force, and furnishes 9% of exports, featuring coconut cream,
coconut oil
frameless , right , alt = A cracked coconut and a bottle of coconut oil
Coconut oil (or coconut butter) is an edible oil derived from the wick, meat, and milk of the coconut palm fruit. Coconut oil is a white solid fat; in warmer climates duri ...
and
copra
Copra (from ) is the dried, white flesh of the coconut from which coconut oil is extracted. Traditionally, the coconuts are sun-dried, especially for export, before the oil, also known as copra oil, is pressed out. The oil extracted from copr ...
. Outside a large automotive
wire harness
A cable harness, also known as a wire harness, wiring harness, cable assembly, wiring assembly or wiring loom, is an assembly of electrical cables or wires which transmit signals or electrical power. The cables are bound together by a durable mat ...
factory, the
manufacturing sector
In macroeconomics, the secondary sector of the economy is an economic sector in the three-sector theory that describes the role of manufacturing. It encompasses industries that produce a finished, usable product or are involved in construction. ...
mainly processes agricultural products. Tourism is an expanding sector; more than 70,000 tourists visited the islands in 1996 and 120,000 in 2014. The Samoan Government has called for deregulation of the financial sector, encouragement of investment, and continued
fiscal discipline
A balanced budget (particularly that of a government) is a budget in which revenues are equal to expenditures. Thus, neither a budget deficit nor a budget surplus exists (the accounts "balance"). More generally, it is a budget that has no budge ...
. Observers point to the flexibility of the
labor market as a basic strength factor for future economic advances.
Trade
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
is Samoa's principal trading partner, typically providing between 35% and 40% of imports and purchasing 45%–50% of exports. Australia,
American Samoa
American Samoa ( sm, Amerika Sāmoa, ; also ' or ') is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of the island country of Samoa. Its location is centered on . It is east of the International ...
, the United States, and Fiji are also important trading partners. Its main imports are food and beverages, industrial supplies, and fuels. The primary sector (agriculture, forestry, and fishing) employs nearly two-thirds of the labor force and produces 17% of GDP. Samoa's principal exports are refined petroleum, fish, and coconut products.
Fishing has had some success in Samoan waters, but the biggest
fisheries industry (headed by Van Camp and StarKist) has been based in American Samoa. StarKist Management announced that it was going ahead with setting up at Asau a blast-freezer project to be operational by 2002. This announcement dispelled a growing suspicion about the genuine motives of StarKist to move to Samoa. The proposed blast-freezer operations in
Asau were expected to bring this village back to life.
Non-conventional sources of revenue
Samoa annually receives important financial assistance from abroad. More than 100,000 Samoans who live overseas provide two sources of revenue. Their direct remittances have amounted to $12.1 million per year recently, and they account for more than half of all tourist visits. In addition to the expatriate community, Samoa also receives roughly $28 million annually in
official development assistance
Official development assistance (ODA) is a category used by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to measure aid, foreign aid. The DAC first adopted the concept in ...
from sources led by China, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. These three sources of revenue—tourism, private transfers, and official transfers—allow Samoa to cover its persistently large
trade deficit
The balance of trade, commercial balance, or net exports (sometimes symbolized as NX), is the difference between the monetary value of a nation's exports and imports over a certain time period. Sometimes a distinction is made between a balance ...
.
In the late 1960s,
Potlatch Forests, Inc. (a US company), upgraded the harbour and airport at
Asau on the northern coast of
Savai'i and established a timber operation, Samoa Forest Products, for harvesting tropical
hardwoods
Hardwood is wood from dicot trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen. Hardwood (which comes from ...
. Potlatch invested about US$2,500,000 in a state-of-the-art sawmill and another US$6,000,000 over several years to develop power, water, and haul roads for their facility. Asau, with the Potlatch sawmillers and Samoa Forest Products, was one of the busiest parts of Savai'i in the 1960s and 1970s; however, the departure of Potlatch and the scaling down of the sawmill has left Asau a
ghost town
Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to:
* Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned
Film and television
* Ghost Town (1936 film), ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser
* Ghost Town (1956 film), ''Ghost Town'' ...
in recent years.
Agriculture
Samoa produced in 2018:
* 180 thousand tons of
coconut
The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family ( Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, the seed, or the ...
;
* 25 thousand tons of
taro
Taro () (''Colocasia esculenta)'' is a root vegetable. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, and petioles. Taro corms are a food staple in Africa ...
;
* 22 thousand tons of
banana
A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...
;
* 6.6 thousand tons of
yam;
* 4.6 thousand tons of
pineapple
The pineapple (''Ananas comosus'') is a tropical plant with an edible fruit; it is the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is indigenous to South America, where it has been cultivated for many centuri ...
;
* 4.1 thousand tons of
mango
A mango is an edible stone fruit produced by the tropical tree ''Mangifera indica''. It is believed to have originated in the region between northwestern Myanmar, Bangladesh, and northeastern India. ''M. indica'' has been cultivated in South a ...
(including
mangosteen
Mangosteen (''Garcinia mangostana''), also known as the purple mangosteen, is a tropical evergreen tree with edible fruit native to tropical lands surrounding the Indian Ocean. Its origin is uncertain due to widespread prehistoric cultivation. ...
and
guava
Guava () is a common tropical fruit cultivated in many tropical and subtropical regions. The common guava ''Psidium guajava'' (lemon guava, apple guava) is a small tree in the myrtle family ( Myrtaceae), native to Mexico, Central America, the ...
);
* 3.4 thousand tons of
papaya
The papaya (, ), papaw, () or pawpaw () is the plant species ''Carica papaya'', one of the 21 accepted species in the genus ''Carica'' of the family Caricaceae. It was first domesticated in Mesoamerica, within modern-day southern Mexico and ...
;
In addition to smaller productions of other agricultural products.
Manufacturing
Until 2017 industry accounted for over one-quarter of GDP while employing less than 6% of the work force. The largest industrial venture was Yazaki Samoa, a Japanese-owned company processing automotive wire harnesses for export to Australia under a concessional market-access arrangement. The Yazaki plant employed more than 2,000 workers and made up over 20% of the manufacturing sector's total output. Net receipts amounted to between $1.5 million and $3.03 million annually, although shipments from Yazaki was counted as services (export processing) and therefore did not officially appear as merchandise exports. Yazaki Samoa closed down in 2017, but in the same year Fero, a New Zealand manufacturer producing wiring units, set up in Samoa in the same plant used by Yazaki.
Natural disasters
The effects of three natural disasters in the early 1990s were overcome by the middle of the decade, but economic growth cooled again with the regional
economic downturn
In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction when there is a general decline in economic activity. Recessions generally occur when there is a widespread drop in spending (an adverse demand shock). This may be triggered by various ...
. Long-run development depends upon upgrading the tourist infrastructure, attracting
foreign investment, and further diversification of the economy.
Two major
cyclone
In meteorology, a cyclone () is a large air mass that rotates around a strong center of low atmospheric pressure, counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from above (opposite to an anti ...
s hit Samoa at the beginning of the 1990s.
Cyclone Ofa
Severe Tropical Cyclone Ofa was a powerful tropical cyclone that caused severe damage in Polynesia in February of 1990. The system was first noted on January 27, 1990, near Tuvalu, as a shallow tropical depression that had developed within the Sou ...
left an estimated 10,000 islanders homeless in February 1990;
Cyclone Val
Severe Tropical Cyclone Val was considered to be the worst tropical cyclone to affect the Samoan Islands since the 1889 Apia cyclone.
The system that was to become Severe Tropical Cyclone Val was first identified during the opening days of Decem ...
caused 13 deaths and hundreds of millions of dollars in damage in December 1991. As a result, gross domestic product declined by nearly 50% from 1989 to 1991. These experiences and Samoa's position as a low-lying
island state
An island country, island state or an island nation is a country whose primary territory consists of one or more islands or parts of islands. Approximately 25% of all independent countries are island countries. Island countries are historically ...
punctuate its concern about
global climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
.
Further economic problems occurred in 1994 with an outbreak of taro leaf blight and the near collapse of the
national airline
A flag carrier is a transport company, such as an airline or shipping company, that, being locally registered in a given sovereign state, enjoys preferential rights or privileges accorded by the government for international operations.
Hist ...
Polynesian Airlines
Samoa Airways, formerly Polynesian Airlines, is the state-owned flag carrier airline of Samoa.
The airline was founded in 1959 as "Polynesian Airlines", providing domestic and international flights throughout the South Pacific. International op ...
.
Taro
Taro () (''Colocasia esculenta)'' is a root vegetable. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, and petioles. Taro corms are a food staple in Africa ...
, a
root crop
Root vegetables are underground plant parts eaten by humans as food. Although botany distinguishes true roots (such as taproots and tuberous roots) from non-roots (such as bulbs, corms, rhizomes, and tubers, although some contain both hypocoty ...
, traditionally was Samoa's largest export, generating more than half of all export revenue in 1993. But a fungal blight decimated the plants, and in each year since 1994 taro exports have accounted for less than 1% of
export revenue. Polynesian Airlines reached a
financial crisis
A financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and man ...
in 1994, which disrupted the tourist industry and eventually required a government bailout.
The government responded to these shocks with a major program of road building and post-cyclone infrastructure repair. Economic reforms were stepped up, including the liberalization of
exchange controls
Foreign exchange controls are various forms of controls imposed by a government on the purchase/sale of foreign currencies by residents, on the purchase/sale of local currency by nonresidents, or the transfers of any currency across national bor ...
. GDP growth rebounded to over 6% in both 1995 and 1996 before slowing again at the end of the decade.
Future prospects
The collapse of
taro
Taro () (''Colocasia esculenta)'' is a root vegetable. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, and petioles. Taro corms are a food staple in Africa ...
exports in 1994 has had the unintended effect of modestly diversifying Samoa's export products and markets. Prior to the taro leaf blight, Samoa's exports consisted of taro ($1.1 million),
coconut cream
Coconut milk is an opaque, milky-white liquid extracted from the grated pulp of mature coconuts. The opacity and rich taste of coconut milk are due to its high oil content, most of which is saturated fat. Coconut milk is a traditional food i ...
($540,000), and "other" ($350,000). Ninety percent of exports went to the Pacific region, and only 1% went to Europe. Forced to look for alternatives to taro, Samoa's exporters have dramatically increased the production of copra, coconut oil, and fish. These three products, which combined to produce export revenue of less than $100,000 in 1993, now account for over $3.8 million. There also has been a relative shift from Pacific markets to European ones, which now receive nearly 15% of Samoa's exports. Samoa's exports are still concentrated in coconut products ($2.36 million worth of copra, copra meal, coconut oil, and coconut cream) and fish ($1.51 million) but are at least somewhat more diverse than before.
Tourism
In 1972 more than 85,000 visitors arrived in Samoa, contributing over $12 million to the local economy. One-third came from American Samoa, 28% from New Zealand, and 11% from the United States. Arrivals increased in 2000, as visitors to the South Pacific avoided the
political strife in
Fiji
Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...
by traveling to Samoa instead.
Tourism numbers and revenue more than doubled in the decade 2007–2016. Samoa received 122,000 visitors in 2007 and 145,176 visitors in 2016. About 46% came from New Zealand, 20% from Australia and 7% from the United States. Samoans living overseas accounted for about 33% of all tourist numbers.
Responding to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
in 2020, Samoa banned all international flights, inbound and outbound.
[AMENDED STATE OF EMERGENCY ORDERS FOR CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) 10th JUNE 2020]
The
service sector
The tertiary sector of the economy, generally known as the service sector, is the third of the three economic sectors in the three-sector model (also known as the economic cycle). The others are the primary sector (raw materials) and the second ...
accounts for more than half of GDP and employs approximately 30% of the labor force.
Statistics
![Samoa electricity production](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Samoa_electricity_production.svg)
Gdp:
purchasing power
Purchasing power is the amount of goods and services that can be purchased with a unit of currency. For example, if one had taken one unit of currency to a store in the 1950s, it would have been possible to buy a greater number of items than would ...
parity – US$1.137 billion (2017 est.)
[Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/samoa/]
GDP – real growth rate:
2.5% (2017 est.)
GDP – per capita:
purchasing power parity – $5,700 (2017 est.)
GDP – composition by sector:
(2017 est.)
''agriculture:''
10.4%
''industry:''
23.6%
''services:''
66%
Population below poverty line:
NA%
Household income or consumption by percentage share:
''lowest 10%:''
NA%
''highest 10%:''
NA%
Inflation rate (consumer prices):
1.3% (2017 est.)
Labor force:
50,700 (2016 est.)
Labor force – by occupation::
(2015 est.)
''agriculture:''
65%
''industry:''
6%
''services:''
29%
Unemployment rate:
5.2% (2017 est.)
Ease of Doing Business Rank: 98th
Budget:
''revenues:''
$110 million
''expenditures:''
$122 million (2011–12)
Industries:
tourism, food processing,
auto part
This is a list of auto parts, mostly for vehicles using internal combustion engines which are manufactured components of automobiles:
Car body and main parts Body components, including trim
Doors
Windows
Low voltage/auxiliary ele ...
s,
building material
Building material is material used for construction. Many naturally occurring substances, such as clay, rock (geology), rocks, sand, wood, and even twigs and leaves, have been used to construct buildings. Apart from naturally occurring materia ...
s
Industrial production growth rate:
5,3% (2010 est.)
Electricity – production:
200 GWh (2010)
Electricity – production by source:
''fossil fuel:''
60%
''hydro:''
40%
''nuclear:''
0%
''other:''
0% (2008)
Electricity – consumption:
150 GWh (2008)
Electricity – exports:
1 kWh (2008)
Electricity – imports:
0 kWh (2008)
Agriculture – products:
coconut
The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family ( Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, the seed, or the ...
s, bananas,
taro
Taro () (''Colocasia esculenta)'' is a root vegetable. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, and petioles. Taro corms are a food staple in Africa ...
,
yams, coffee,
cocoa
Cocoa may refer to:
Chocolate
* Chocolate
* ''Theobroma cacao'', the cocoa tree
* Cocoa bean, seed of ''Theobroma cacao''
* Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter and ...
Exports:
$152 million (f.o.b., 2012)
Exports – commodities:
coconut
The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family ( Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, the seed, or the ...
oil and cream,
copra
Copra (from ) is the dried, white flesh of the coconut from which coconut oil is extracted. Traditionally, the coconuts are sun-dried, especially for export, before the oil, also known as copra oil, is pressed out. The oil extracted from copr ...
, fish, beer
Exports – partners:
American Samoa
American Samoa ( sm, Amerika Sāmoa, ; also ' or ') is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of the island country of Samoa. Its location is centered on . It is east of the International ...
, Australia, New Zealand, United States, Germany
Imports:
$258 million (f.o.b., 2012)
Imports – commodities:
machinery and equipment, foodstuffs
Imports – partners:
Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Fiji, United States
Debt – external:
$145 million (2010 est.)
Economic aid – recipient:
$24.3 million (2010)
Currency:
1 tala (WS$) = 100 sene
Exchange rates:
tala (WS$) per US$1 – 3.0460 (January 2000), 3.0120 (1999), 2.9429 (1998), 2.5562 (1997), 2.4618 (1996), 2.4722 (1995)
Fiscal year:
calendar year
Notes
{{World Trade Organization