Guam military build-up not so open for foreign firms

Updated May 26, 2009 15:29:56

An Australian construction company says its attempts to do business on Guam are proving more difficult than first thought. Up to 16 billion US dollars worth of construction contracts will be awarded on the US Pacific territory over the next few years, as America re-deploys Marines from its Japanese base on Okinawa and builds up its military presence in the Mariana Islands.

Guam's Governor is actively attempting to recruit companies from the Pacific region to take part in the gigantic infrastructure projects association with the buildup. But one Australian company is finding the experience tougher than advertised.

Presenter: Bruce Hill
Speaker: Captain Paul Fuligni, US Naval facilities Engineering Command in the Marianas; John Kennedy, boss of Australian construction company Goodline; Shawn Gumataotao, Guam Governor Felix Camacho's deputy chief of staff

HILL: The US military redeployment in the Pacific is going to boost the presence of the Army, Navy, Air Force and above all Marines on Guam, and that means big construction contacts for extra housing, roads, electricity supply and all the infrastructure associated with boosting an island's population by up to a third. It's so big that Captain Paul Fuligni of the US Naval facilities Engineering Command in the Marianas says international firms are being invited to bid for the work.

FULIGNI: There is plenty of opportunity for everybody, that's a lot of construction going to be done here in Guam, that's a lot more than we have done in a long, long, long time. So I think to be fair, there will be honest, opportunities for everybody, be it local firms, firms from the mainland, and even foreign firms.

HILL: So how easy is it going to be for firms from the Pacific region to compete with local and American firms for the massive construction work about to take place on Guam?

Not particularly, according to John Kennedy, boss of Australian construction company Goodline, who recently sent a representative to the island to assess the possibilities.

KENNEDY: American companies were probably the flavour, but that doesn't mean you can't beat the Yanks, does it? But then be smarter I think. A lot of works, a lot of stuff the Yanks do I think is dumb. They waste, that's only my opinion. They do plenty of things a bit different I think.

HILL: How confident are you that you will be able to get some business out of this eventually?

KENNEDY: The way I look at things these days, we might put in, I said it to one of the boys here this morning. What we've got to prepare to do is put in ten quotes, maybe 15 quotes, and maybe estimate we are going to get one of them. From my opinion, I think we could offer Guam a lot, like I think we could put the right people there, if they are building houses, I think we could put the right people there if they are building dams and infrastructure, and whether that labour has to be shared between Australian labour and Philippines or local labour, well so be it.

HILL: Guam's government says it wants Pacific firms to come to Guam to participate in the multi-billion dollar infrastructure construction associated with the military build-up. Governor Felix Camacho's deputy chief of staff, Shawn Gumataotao says the Governor wants to ensure that doing business on Guam is as straightforward as possible for regional companies.

GUMATAOTAO: Governor Camacho for the last two-and-a-half, three years has actively went throughout the region to encourage our friends from Australia, New Zealand, all across the South Pacific to come up into Guam, to partner up either with US or Japanese companies, especially with the build-up to be able to take advantage of that and be able to help with the projects that are going to be associated with the movement between marines from Okinawa to Guam. And in terms of getting them here, I mean we've encouraged it. I think the biggest challenge is just getting here. We've heard that frequency of flights from New Zealand, from Australia, from Taiwan, from the other parts of the region - Indonesia. When there is not that many flights coming through, the biggest impediments of getting labour to the workplace is going to be getting them basically here via air.

HILL: And how much interest has there been from around the region in doing construction work on Guam?

GUMATAOTAO: Oh, there has been quite a lot. There's been big companies from Australia, like Leighton, who came in right after the announcement of the build-up and looking to bring some of their partners into it. We've had interest from companies from Taiwan who have done a lot of major CIPs in that country, and because of some of the US lies are a lot more flexible towards the buy American act, we've actually seen more countries to be able to come into Guam and utilise their expertise and their skill in order to build for US base marine corp here.