New Caledonia

Record debt for New Caledonia after a new French loan, Covid-19 numbers spike in French Polynesia, and NZ medical experts continue their mission to Niue.

There were no cases in the community. A medical team from New Zealand continues to work alongside medical authorities in Niue, to help stop Covid-19 cases at the border spreading into the community. Police in the Solomon Islands town of Auki have arrested ten people at the weekend, in a crackdown on kwaso (illegal alcohol) and consumption of liquor in public. Last month, the Territorial Chamber of Accounts warned of a critical situation with the public finances and urged the creation of new revenue streams. The loan agreement was guaranteed by the French state, and was signed in Noumea by the New Caledonian president Louis Mapou, French High Commissioner Patrice Faure and a representative of the French Development Agency. He said in the past ten years New Caledonia's ratio of debt to revenue jumped from 35 percent to its current high of 255 percent.