New Year comes early in Samoa

New Year comes early in Samoa

For the tiny South Pacific Island nation December 30, Friday has been skipped this year as it ditched a time-zone alliance with the United States and moved its time zone 24 hours ahead to catch up with Asia, New Zealand and Australia.

In a move to make it easier for Samoa to trade with key partners, Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele leaped Samoa to the west of the international dateline on New Year's Eve.

Malielegaoi said that the change in time zone will remove the enormous amount of confusion in our travel times for the Samoans and especially for the tourists who come to Samoa, who keep thinking of the New Zealand and Australian time zones.

Countries are free to choose whether the dateline passes to the east or west, and Samoa's decision will mean all new maps will need to be modified.

Some are worried that Samoa may lose tourist as losing its position as the last place on earth to see the sunset each day, but with its change it now one of the first places to see in each new day.

Tokelau, the small former New Zealand dependency which has its administration in Samoa's capital Apia, is also changing datelines, while nearby American Samoa will continue to be on the other side of the dateline and will be a day behind.

The time zone change is not the foremost change in Samoa in recent years. Back in 2009, the country switched to driving on the left hand side of the road from the right hand side, in line with New Zealand and Australia.

Posted by James Fried on Saturday December 31 2011, 3:37 AM EST. Ref: Yahoo. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, World. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0