Ceremonial Buoy Event Held in Tarawa as East Micronesia Cable Project Nears Completion

The East Micronesia Cable has landed in Kiribati marking an important milestone in providing the community with faster, high quality, more affordable and reliable internet. 

The project will provide the first undersea telecommunications cable for South Tarawa, strengthening Kiribati's climate resilience, assisting governments with disaster and climate change preparedness and reducing the chances of an outage in the event of adverse weather events. Most importantly, the cable will connect families and communities – to each other – across atolls, across the region and globally.

With representatives from the project’s development partner governments gathering alongside Kiribati government officials in Tarawa to celebrate the major milestone, the event marked the arrival of the international telecommunications cable to the landing site at Nanikai from the cable lay ship. 

Australia was represented by our Special Envoy for the Pacific and Regional Affairs, His Excellency Ewen McDonald. “Today’s event marks a critical milestone in improving telecommunications connectivity for Kiribati to ensure its progression into a digital future” said Mr McDonald. 

Funded by Australia, Japan and the United States, the East Micronesia Cable will improve connectivity across Kiribati, Nauru and Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). Local partners are leading delivery of the project, which in Kiribati include the Ministry of Information, Communication and Transport and BwebwerikiNET Limited.

The cable landing is an important milestone towards increased economic growth and development for the region, with the project to deliver a 2,250-metre-long undersea cable and supporting infrastructure connecting Kiribati, Nauru and FSM to the existing HANTRU-1 cable landing point located in Pohnpei, FSM.

Once in service, the cable is expected to provide more than 100,000 people across the three countries with increased availability of digital government services and enables increased trade and employment opportunities.

Australia is supporting the AUD135 million project via the Australian Infrastructure Financing Facility for the Pacific (AIFFP), with a grant of up to AUD65 million.

The AIFFP is committed to principles of quality infrastructure delivery, with the project delivering local labour and job opportunities. 

“The East Micronesia Cable project will be transformative for the people of Kiribati,” Australia’s High Commissioner to Kiribati, Mr Mark Foxe said.

“Australia is proud to celebrate this critical milestone alongside our partners and invest in infrastructure that has real impact on communities across the Pacific.”

Ceremonial Buoy events in Nauru and Kosrae in FSM will be held in the coming weeks, with the cable expected to be ready for service in November 2025.

For more information about the project, visit the AIFFP website or the East Micronesia Cable website, which provides information in English, Gilbertese, Kosraean and Nauruan.