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Concept
Economy of French Polynesia
Summary
The economy of French Polynesia is one of a developed country with a service sector accounting for 75%. French Polynesia's GDP per capita is around $22,000, one of the highest in the Pacific region.
Before French colonisation, the Polynesian islands that constitute nowadays French Polynesia, relied on a subsistence economy. Work was heavily organised and performed by the community as a whole under the direction of the Arii ruling class and the priests. Mountains were terraced for agriculture production, river banks were contained by stone walls, artificial soil was created on atolls in large trenches, and large systems made out of coral stone walls trapped and stocked live fish. Production outputs were divided by the ruling class between the population.
After the contact was established with European ships, foreign diseases killed large portions of the populations, and Christian beliefs and clergy produced a huge shift in the culture of those islands. With fewer population to feed, more land per capita was available, and the land use switched toward the limited production required by a family to live. Habitations moved toward seashores as the population relied more on the lagoon and sea trade. European ships stopped in those islands to purchase water, salt pork meat, dried fish and fresh fruits.
As French, English and Americans settled, part of the agriculture moved towards exports of oranges, coprah, coffee, cotton, and vanilla. They also exported Tahitian black pearls and sandalwood. Santal wood nearly disappeared, cotton production was short-lived, as the US's south recovered from the American Civil War, and coffee and orange trees suffered from imported diseases that stopped those exports. Coprah and vanilla prices and competition worldwide impacted heavily those productions in the second half of the 20th century, although they still exist. The guano mining at Makatea started in 1917 and stopped in 1966 when the stocks were depleted.
In 1962, France stationed military personnel in the region and started nuclear experimentations in Moruroa.
Official source
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