Expo highlights potential

PNG has the potential to do deals with Indonesia through micro to small and medium enterprises, the managing director of Moutuana Entrepreneurs Alliance of PNG (MEAP) Marianna Ellingson says.
Ellingson recently led 26 entrepreneurs to Jakarta for a trade expo.
“To build a broad-based economy in PNG, you must develop the people who are actually playing in the zone and producing the gross national product,” she said.
“When you have more people participating in business, you have happy homes because people are focused more on bettering their lives.
“This is like a huge showcase that you can place orders for supplies and things that we need back here.
“The relevance to PNG is the amount of products that we can find to enhance our own businesses.”
Ellingson said the alliance had business partners in Indonesia and had facilitated the programme in the past two years.
She said the expo was the largest business-to-business networking and business matching event in Asia with over a thousand exhibitors comprising Indonesians who were producing premium quality export commodities for markets abroad.
“The entrepreneurs also learnt what export-ready products are about and the premium quality when you are going to export,” she said. Ellingson said it was an opportunity to meet people involved in small to medium enterprises.
Volu Napoleon from Central said attending the expo was a great experience and she learnt a lot of things.
She said the visit to the factories and small industries enabled her to secure a business partner to work with in building her hair saloon business.