Economic Activity
Tutuila has a traditional Polynesian economy, mainly provided by subsistence agriculture and fishing, although tourism is a promising developing sector. Economic activity is strongly linked to the US with which American Samoa conducts most of its commerce, although American Samoa does not treat the US as an external trade partner. Funding from the US Government add substantially to American Samoa's economic well being. Attempts by the government to develop a larger and broader economy are restrained by Samoa's remote location, its limited transportation, and its devastating hurricanes.
More than 90% of the land is communally owned. Tuna fishing and tuna processing plants are the backbone of the private sector, with canned tuna the primary export. Urban development has taken roots in Pago Pago Harbor where fisheries and its allied industries of canneries have been established. The largest Tuna processing plant in the world, known as StarKist, is also located in Fagatago. In the harbor there is a workshop of the Marine Railways, which takes care of the maintenance and repair of fishing ships.
Read more about this topic: Tutuila
Famous quotes containing the words economic and/or activity:
“The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“Labor is work that leaves no trace behind it when it is finished, or if it does, as in the case of the tilled field, this product of human activity requires still more labor, incessant, tireless labor, to maintain its identity as a “work” of man.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)