By FRANK ASAELI
PAPUA New Guinea has been urged to go downstream processing of agricultural products to generate jobs in the rural areas and get the highest prices for the produce instead of solely developing its mineral resources.
This is because agriculture has greater employment opportunities and will be beneficial to the people, business and also the country’s fledgling economy.
This was pointed out recently by Roberto Cordon, an expert on market analysis services of the Geneva-based International Trade Centre (ITC) at the recent two-day workshop spearheaded by the Department of Commerce and Industry (DCI) in Port Moresby.
The awareness conference was attended by senior representatives from Government agencies and private sector.
At present, the Government was giving bulk of its support to oil, gold, copper and natural gas resource development to the detriment of the agricultural sector, which had been in the doldrums ever since although 80% of the people are dependent on it for hand-to-mouth survival.
On a global scale, Mr Cordon said PNG had to put up its hands up and be counted in by ITC “to improve its export and find new global trade partners”.
However, before the country could be recognised in the global trade system, it had to export its products not in their raw forms but in the processed forms.
This means these PNG agricultural produce should pass through the downstream network where values are added, and thus command higher prices in the world market.
Mr Cordon is the manager of training programmes at ITC and is in the country facilitating workshops to train private and public sector officials on how to access useful information in the ITC databases (website: www.intracen.org) to enhance trade and investment globally.
What ITC did was trade-related technical assistance aimed at the business sector of developing and transition economies, he said.
“ITC enables small business export success in developing countries by providing, with partners, trade development solutions to the private sector, trade support institutions and policy makers,” Mr Cordon added.
He said ITC focused on product and market development, development of trade support services, trade information and business advisory services and training.
One of ITC’s programmes offers many unique business opportunities for developing country enterprises and also facilitates contacts and exchange of experience among country networks.