Business council recognises government restructure

THE Business Council of PNG recognises the state-owned enterprise restructure that the Government has announced to undertake, says president Nuni Kulu.
She told the Prime Minister’s back-to-business breakfast in Port Moresby yesterday that the council looked forward to the reform.
“Preliminary discussions with Minister (Sasindran) Muthuvel, chairman of the Kumul Consolidated Holdings) and the management indicated a strong desire to have some commercial SOEs with corporate governance of higher standing and strong balance sheets resulting in high performance,” Kulu said.
“The business council looks forward to contributing to the reform agenda, in particular in public utilities, telecommunications and energy.”
She highlighted some statistics on the country’s performance in the global economy, with PNG ranked 137 out 180 nations in the corruption perception index. On the human development index, PNG is 155th out of 180 nations.
On ease of doing business, it is ranked 108th.
“This is why we must build partnership now more than ever. The public and private sector must work together to achieve positive development outcomes.”
These global rankings impacting growth today are not (our) final destiny.”
Council vice-president Hulala Tokome stressed the importance of foreign currency in the market.
“We remain hopeful to see an improvement in forex availability in the market (in 2020).”
The council plans to facilitate 50 Government-to-business engagements this year.