Culturally rich PNG needs to tap into sector worth K1.5tril: Kilanda

ACCORDING to international studies, cultural tourism is worth US$450 billion (about K1.5 trillion), but the culturally rich Papua New Guinea has not even captured one per cent of it, an official says.
National Cultural Commission (NCC) executive director Steven Kilanda said this in Port Moresby last week during a farewell reception of long-serving staff of Institute of PNG Studies and NCC.
“Culture is an asset when the gold mines are depleted, it all falls back to the culture, it is one of the biggest standalone products in this country,” he said.
“US$450 billion alone in cultural tourism (globally) so if we in Papua New Guinea can muster 10 per cent of that, that is another LNG, it is one of the most important things in this country.
“It is about time, you have to push this cultural sector into the economic sector.
“The National Planning and Monitoring Department keeps on telling me that culture you have 50 per cent on the social sector and 50 per cent on the economic sector, but I told them that in culture you have to be 100 per cent under the economic sector,” Kilanda said.
“We must try our best to get funding, it is the music, arts, crafts; this is huge.”
Kilanda said that was the reason why NCC was signing memorandums of understanding with provincial governments to work in partnership to grow PNG’s cultural tourism potential.
“We can work in partnership because with us at NCC alone, we cannot do it.”
He said three important cultural institutions in the National Arts Troupe, Institute of PNG Studies, and National Film Institute needed to be adequately funded and resourced to help develop and showcase PNG’s rich cultural tourism potential.