Samoa will not have December 30 this year due to a time zone change.

Instead, the tiny South Pacific island nation will go from Thursday, December 29, straight to New Year's Eve and will become one of the first countries to celebrate the New Year, 2012, instead of being one of the last.

Samoa decided earlier this year to change its time zone so that it falls on the western side of the international dateline, like Australia and New Zealand.

Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said in May that Samoa was losing out on business opportunities because its weekends did not coincide with those of its closest trading partners and when it was the start of the business week, Monday in Australia and New Zealand, it was still Sunday in Samoa.

Samoa was on the western side of the dateline until 1982, when it and neighboring American Samoa switched to the eastern side to encourage closer economic ties with the United States.

The New Zealand territory of Tokelau is making the dateline switch as well. But American Samoa will remain on the eastern side of the line.