Samoa time travellers to leap a day into the future
Pacific island chain plans switch to west side of international dateline to be on same day as Australia and China
Samoa and its current position on the international dateline. The islands' prime minister wants to move his nation into the same time zone as Australia
Samoa plans to leap 24 hours into the future, erasing a day and putting an extra kink in the international dateline, so that it can be on the same weekday as Australia, New Zealand and eastern Asia.
The island nation is planning to reverse a decision made 119 years ago to stay behind a day to help do business with American traders in California.
That choice has meant that when it's dawn on Sunday in Samoa, it's already dawn on Monday in adjacent Tonga – and fast approaching dawn on Monday in New Zealand, Australia and China.
Samoa has found its interests lying more with the Asia-Pacific region and now wants to switch back to the west side of the international dateline, which runs roughly north-to-south along the 180-degree line of longitude in the Pacific Ocean.
"In doing business with New Zealand and Australia, we're losing out on two working days a week," said the prime minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi
"While it's Friday here, it's Saturday in New Zealand and when we're at church on Sunday, they're already conducting business in Sydney and Brisbane."
Samoa's change will have a cost: it has long marketed itself as the last place on Earth to see each day's sunset.
"It will be really confusing for us. I just don't see the point, and we don't know the benefits yet," islander Laufa Lesa told the Associated Press. "The government says it's good for the economy, but it's totally fine the way it is now."
The prime minister already has a new tourism angle: telling visitors they can celebrate the same day twice, because American Samoa next door will stay on the California side of the dateline.
"You can have two birthdays, two weddings and two wedding anniversaries on the same date – on separate days – in less than an hour's flight across [the ocean], without leaving the Samoan chain," he said.
Tuilaepa hopes to scratch this year's 31 December from the calendar and celebrate the new year a night early.
The original shift to the east side of the line was conducted in 1892 when Samoa celebrated 4 July – US independence day – twice.
The dateline drawn by mapmakers is not mandated by any international body.
Nearly as many Samoans now live in Australia and New Zealand as the 180,000 living in the islands, which are located about halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii and rely on fruit and vegetable exports as well as tourism.
In 2009, Tuilaepa enacted a law that switched driving from the right to the left, to bring Samoa into line with Australia and New Zealand.
He said then the change would make it easier for Samoans in Australia and New Zealand to send used cars home to their relatives. Opponents predicted traffic disruption, but this did not happen.
Tuilaepa said: "Today we do a lot more business with New Zealand and Australia, China and Pacific Rim countries such as Singapore." The change of date would make commerce with the Asia-Pacific region "far, far easier".
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