THERE is no today in Samoa.

The tiny nation will jump forward in time as it crossed westward over the international dateline to align itself with its main trading partners throughout the region.

At the stroke of midnight on December 29, the time in Samoa will leap forward to December 31 - New Year's Eve. For Samoa's 186,000 citizens, Friday, December 30, 2011, will simply cease to exist.

The time-jump comes 119 years after some US traders persuaded Samoan authorities to align their islands' time with nearby US-controlled American Samoa and the US to assist their trading with California.

But the time zone has proved problematic in recent years, putting Samoa nearly a full day behind neighbouring Australia and New Zealand, which are increasingly important trading partners with the island nation.

In a bid to remedy that, the government passed a law in June that moved Samoa west of the international dateline, which separates one calendar day from the next and runs roughly north-to-south through the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

It is the second big economic modernising move by the governing Human Rights Protection Party in recent years, following its switch to driving on the left side of the road in 2009.

Associated Press