Chinese Government provides RMB 250,000 grant for Vaiusu Port Project Feasibility Study

Project narrative

On November 3, 2017, the Chinese Government and the Government of Samoa signed an exchange of letters, which committed RMB 250,000 of grant funding for a prefeasibility study of a proposed wharf at Vaiusu Bay. CCCC-FHDI Engineering Co., Ltd. — a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Communications Construction Co Ltd — was responsible for undertaking the study. The study was complete as of January 2018 and the Chinese Government was reportedly ‘extremely interested’ in undertake a full feasibility study. Then, in July 2019, the Chinese Government and the Government of Samoa signed an exchange of letters regarding a full feasibility study for the Vaiusu Port Project. Then, in December 2020, a Chinese embassy official told the Samoa Observer that the feasibility study was still underway and the Vaiusu Port Project was experiencing delays due to Covid-19-related border closures. Approximately five months later, Fiame Naomi Mataafa, Samoa’s incoming Prime Minister (who was before that an opposition leader), pledged to cancel the $100 million Vaiusu Port Project. She called it ‘excessive’ and noted that the Government of Samoa was already heavily indebted to China. Then, in August 2021, she confirmed that the project had been ‘shelved’. The proposed wharf in Vaiusu Bay had become a divisive issue in Samoa, playing a part in the April 20221 national election where long-serving leader Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi lost his parliamentary majority.