Experts to assess potential special economic zones, says minister

Business

INTERNATIONAL Trade and Investment Minister Richard Maru has announced that experts from the Japanese Development Institute will return next month to continue their assessments on sites for special economic zones (SEZs) in the country.
“The Japanese Development Institute will return to the country early next month and they will visit five provinces including Western, Manus, Madang, East New Britain and Morobe,” he said.
“This study will complete a high level assessment on which areas are viable and suitable to create a special economic zone and the study will also rank the areas in terms of which ones will be given the highest priority.”
He explained that factors such as whether there was state land available in these areas, the presence or potential for a market or the availability of potential investors, would determine order of rank and prioritise projects because not all SEZ will be catered to at once.
“It will take some time and resources but I can confirm to Parliament and the Pomio MP (Elias Kapavore) that the team will be visiting the district in February. You will be contacted to work together to make the travel arrangements for the team to visit your area,” Maru said.
“The PNG Strategic Development Plan 2030 identifies 10 economic corridors in the country, one of which is the south coast economic corridor, covering over 500km of coastline from Rabaul to Pomio and Kandrian-Gloucester,” Kapavore said.
“This is where the bulk of agricultural commodities are coming from to Kokopo. Our people are generally hard working and committed to supporting the Government’s agenda on economic empowerment and downstream processing.”
Kapavore said funding was used to upgrade roads and bridges, start arrangements with coffee, poultry, rice, cocoa, fisheries, tourism programmes among others, to be implemented soon.