Positive foreign investor outlook

By SHIRLEY MAULUDU
PAPUA New Guinea is emerging as a favorite destination for big international investors in natural gas, according to a report.
The Report: Papua New Guinea 2016, published by the Oxford Business Group, said it had caused a substantial shift from construction, services, communications, finance, logistic and agro-business.
The report was published by Oxford Business Group.
Chief executive officer Jeffery Andrews while presenting the report last Wednesday said PNG hinged on the delivery of natural gas projects.
And the re-investment of the proceeds, infrastructure et cetera will boost domestic productivity in technology, modern agriculture and tourism.
“Overall, we share the International Monetary Fund’s forecast that Gross Domestic Product will stay above 4 per cent through until 2020 – on an average of around 3.6 per cent for the decade after that,” Andrews said.
“Given its small and rural population, PNG in our view stands to benefit from the technological advances developed in other countries, skipping the traditional stage of becoming low-cost manufacture.
“Instead, the country has an opportunity to focus on value-add sectors that support its core industries in oil and gas, mining and agriculture.
“What makes up cautiously optimistic about PNG’s investment prospects is it has a relatively diversified investor base, as an increasingly economy, engaged in international trade, which paves way for healthy competition among investors.”
Investment Promotion Authority acting managing director Clarence Hoot said investors in different sectors had shown interest to invest in the country despite the challenging economic conditions.
“According to statistics, we are still getting a lot of interests coming in, our status is still going up,” Hoot said.
“There is a lot of variation meaning many companies already established in PNG are getting onto additional business activities.”