Beginnings
In 1970, the newly independent government of Nauru purchased the mining rights to the islands lucrative phosphate mines from their previous colonial ruler, Australia, for A$21 million.
The mines brought considerable wealth to the tiny island of Nauru, with the industry bringing in around A$100–120 million annually. Annual government expenditures amounted to around A$30 million, thus giving the republic around A$80 million per annum. This surplus was then added to the trust.
Read more about this topic: Nauru Phosphate Royalties Trust
Famous quotes containing the word beginnings:
“When the beginnings of self-destruction enter the heart it seems no bigger than a grain of sand.”
—John Cheever (1912–1982)
“Those newspapers of the nation which most loudly cried dictatorship against me would have been the first to justify the beginnings of dictatorship by somebody else.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“Let us, then, take our compass; we are something, and we are not everything. The nature of our existence hides from us the knowledge of first beginnings which are born of the nothing; and the littleness of our being conceals from us the sight of the infinite. Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body occupies in the expanse of nature.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)