By Gerardo R. Partido
Variety News Staff

GUAM continues to get major national attention as Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced plans to visit the island next month.
Kempthorne made the announcement during the Pacific Islands Conference of Leaders in Washington, D.C. where Guam played a prominent role.
During the conference, the transfer of the 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam was one of the topics discussed. U.S. and Pacific leaders discussed the potential economic benefits to the region that will result from the relocation.
The U.S. State Department said that 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.
According to federal officials, neighboring island states in Micronesia will be able to contribute and benefit from construction activities that will be triggered by the relocation of 8,000 U.S. troops from Okinawa to Guam.
In addition, the U.S. State Department has informed Gov. Felix P. Camacho that Guam will have a more active voice in regional organizations, including the Pacific Islands Forum and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community as the State Department has committed to increase participation with these groups.
The three-day conference, which ended yesterday, gathered 20 island governments including those of Guam, the CNMI, American Samoa, Hawaii, and the south Pacific islands.
In a special meeting outside the conference, Camacho met with Kempthorne to discuss the Marines’ movement, the governor’s office said.
Kempthorne announced that Guam has been chosen as the host for the fourth Conference on Business Opportunities in the Islands organized by the Department of the Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs, which will be held on Oct. 8-9.
During last year’s conference held in Hawaii, Kempthorne singled out Guam in his speech, saying that Guam’s growth will speed up over the next few years as 8,000 Marines are relocated there from Okinawa.
This year’s conference is seen as the next major event in the ongoing initiative of the Department of the Interior to foster private sector-led economic development in the U.S.-affiliated insular areas.
According to David Cohen, Interior’s deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Insular Affairs, the conference will provide a venue through which businesspeople from both the mainland and the islands can meet and forge partnerships to do business.
Aside from Guam, participants in the conference include the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, the Republic of Palau, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia.