China rising, says Maru

CHINA is fast becoming Papua New Guinea’s most important trading partner with trade surplus valued at about K4.1 billion, says International Trade and Investment Minister Richard Maru.
Maru said this after a brief meeting with Chinese Deputy Commerce Minister, Tang Wenhong in Port Moresby yesterday.
“We are determined to grow and deepen our relationship with China and anchor it through a Free Trade Agreement if our joint feasibility study which will be completed in July confirms that it is viable and in our national interest to enter into an agreement with China,” he said.
“We have started the process with PNG advancing K1 million last year to commence the joint study and we are happy that China will make their K1 million available so we can complete the study by July.”
Maru said although the county acknowledged Australia for being its biggest investor with investments valued at over K60 billion, they hardly bought from PNG.
PNG’s exports to Australia in 2022 stood AU$1.6 billion (about K3.9 billion) with over 98 per cent being gold and other precious metals while Australia’s exports to PNG stood at AU$95.9 million (about K363 million).
Maru said trade had been skewed in Australia’s favour for decades. Meanwhile, for the past five years, trade between PNG and China has been in favour of PNG with PNG recoding surplus balance of trade from 2017-2021.
Furthermore, in 2020, PNG exported K6.7 billion, imported K2.6 billion and has a trade surplus of K4.1 billion. China has been ranked third as top export destination for PNG products and also ranked second as top import source for PNG.
“This indicates that trade with China is economical,” Maru said.
“We have realised that our future in terms of exports lies with China. If both Australia and New Zealand have free trade agreements with China and they are the biggest export markets for these two countries, we must also move in this direction.” Mura said China’s growing economy coupled with soaring domestic demands stimulated by its 1.41 billion population positioned the country as an important source of global demand, hence PNG was keen to strengthen and deepen its relationship with China anchored on trade and investment.
“I also welcome the three flights coming to PNG from China weekly.
“This will bring a lot of investors and tourists to come from China to PNG.
“This is good news. But we must have the products like first class hotels, and facilities like casinos and others to attract the 100 million Chinese tourists to also consider PNG as an attractive tourism destination.”