The economy of Saint Helena depends largely on financial assistance from the UK, which amounted to about $5 million in 1998. Saint Helena's local population earns income from fishing, the raising of livestock, and sales of handicrafts. Because there are few jobs, a large proportion of the work force has left to seek employment overseas.
The British government announced an intention in early 2005 to fund building of an international airport on the island by 2010. In 2009 the government postponed the plans while the UK was in recession but in November 2011 eventually decided to build the Saint Helena Airport from 2012 through 2015. With a total investment of £236.6m (costs for construction and ten years of operation) the airport will be the largest single investment ever made in the island.
Saint Helena's gross domestic product (GDP) by purchasing power parity for the 1994/5 financial year was US$13.9 million, and this figure, per capita, was $2,000. The financial year in Saint Helena runs from 1 April to 31 March. St. Helena's budget had revenues of $11.2 million, with expenditures of $11 million in the financial year ending 1993.
A campaign is currently underway (reported on BBC Radio 4, Today programme, 10 July 2004) to encourage emigration from the UK to Saint Helena to aid development of the economy.
Read more about Economy Of Saint Helena: Industry, Exports, Imports, Economic Aid, Currency
Famous quotes containing the words economy of, economy, saint and/or helena:
“Wise men read very sharply all your private history in your look and gait and behavior. The whole economy of nature is bent on expression. The tell-tale body is all tongues. Men are like Geneva watches with crystal faces which expose the whole movement.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get “a good job,” but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“This is the fundamental idea of culture, insofar as it sets but one task for each of us: to further the production of the philosopher, of the artist, and of the saint within us and outside us, and thereby to work at the consummation of nature.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Her name was called Lady Helena Herring and her age was 25 and she mated well with the earl.”
—Daisy Ashford (1881–1972)