Amaze your friends

Before you get your snoot in the San Miguel for the three-day weekend, why not bone up on some economic figures? That way you can be the life of the party and amaze your friends with your knowledge, since they are already impressed with your charm and good looks.

In case you forgot to look at the May 13 edition of the Saipan Tribune, reporter Edith G. Alejandro scribed an interesting article on the results of the 2002 Economic Census. The census showed that the apparel manufacturing industry has remained the CNMI’s economic mainstay, tallying $639 million in sales. That’s over twice the sales figures for the next largest sector of sales, the retail sector, which rang up $312 million. Then, third on the list, came accommodations (a fancy word for hotels) and food services, at $197 million.

Let’s go with that hotel gig for a minute. I saw my first Saipan hotel 10 years ago this month. For most of the years since I have been deeply involved in the CNMI tourism sector. I have performed economic analysis for a variety of tourism related businesses here, and I have served as an economic consultant to the Marianas Visitors Authority (known, back then, as the “Bureau,” instead of “Authority,” in case you care). And I’m not just a pencil neck geek, I’ve also interacted in the local tourism sector as a helicopter air tour pilot and as a regional airline pilot. Meanwhile, over the years, all three newspapers in the area, the Pacific Daily News, the Marianas Variety, and, of course, the Saipan Tribune, have published interviews with me about the economy and tourism.

So you can’t find a bigger booster of CNMI tourism than me.

But there’s a difference between positive boosting and irresponsible delusions. Anybody who tells you that tourism can “make up” for a loss in the manufacturing sector is on the delusion side of things. Look at the math, look at the sales figures I mentioned above. The CNMI has been fortunate to have two industrial legs to stand on: Tourism (service), and garments (manufacturing). All in all, a great deal. Retail sales, by the way, are really an adjunct to these industries, since without these industries, you’d only have a few “we accept food stamps” stores.

While we’ve got our noses in the economic data, consider some figures from the Burger & Comer Economic Report for 2001. Though numbers have wiggled a bit since then, the garment industry’s importance was certainly easy to see. Try this on for size: The industry contributed $65.9 million in direct revenues to the CNMI government for that year, roughly one-third of the government’s budget. The details came out like so: User fees and excise taxes, $31.8 million. Wage, salary, and income taxes, $19.5 million. Utility payments to CUC, $7.6 million. Labor and immigration fees, $4.6 million. Monies to CHC and CPA came to $2.4 million. Yeah, that’s a lot of money, and you can thank the garment industry for all of it.

More data from that study: The garment industry was responsible for $47.3 million in local purchases in 2001. That money went locally for stuff like gas, food, insurance, land leases, and so on.

Heck, just taking a look at these two figures, direct government revenues and direct sales locally, the garment industry kicked in over $113 million in that year alone. That’s more than $2 million per week! The indirect economic activity created would be far higher than that, but that’s a story for a different day.

Well, that should be enough economic data for you to impress your date with this weekend. Having fortified your mind with data, you can feel like you’ve earned the right to fortify your weekend with a cold San Mig. Tell ‘em Ed sent you.