By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

THE U.S. State Department said Tuesday it is working with the Department of Defense’s Joint Guam Program Office to explore options for neighboring countries to share in the construction projects generated by military expansion on Guam.
The office of the spokesman for the State Department said neighboring island states in Micronesia will be able to contribute to and benefit from construction activities that will be triggered by the relocation of 8,000 U.S. troops from Okinawa to Guam.
Facing a manpower shortage, Guam has been struggling to increase its labor force to deal with hundreds of upcoming construction jobs. Local contractors are depending on foreign workers from the Philippines, China and Taiwan, while island officials have been asking the federal government to loosen visa restrictions for Guam.
But the State Department is more keen on tapping the citizens of Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia who, under the Compact of Free Association, “are currently eligible to work in Guam and other U.S. territories.”
The transfer of Marines is among the main items on the agenda at the 8th Pacific Islands Conference of Leaders hosted by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the Hawaii-based East-West Center in Washington, D.C.
In the fact sheet posted on its Web site, the U.S. State Department announced that Fiji will be the center of the United States’ public diplomacy activities throughout the Pacific Islands.
The State Department disclosed the U.S. government’s plan to establish a new regional office for the State Department in Suva, Fiji, which is considered the most important commercial crossroads in the South Pacific.
With 16 diplomatic missions and a number of international satellite offices, Suva is considered by the U.S. as an ideal location to advance its interests in the Pacific region.
The department’s Web site said Rice will be unveiling a number of new initiatives as part of its effort to expand political, economic, and cultural ties with the Pacific.
The State Department plans to increase educational exchanges in the South Pacific and will continue the South Pacific Program that sends five students a year from selected Pacific countries to the U.S. for undergraduate and graduate degrees.
The three-day conference which ends Thursday gathers 20 island governments including those of Guam, the CNMI, American Samoa, Hawaii, and the south Pacific islands.