First coconut festival to be held

THE Kokonas Indastri Koporesen (KIK) will host the country’s first coconut festival next month which will be an opportunity to showcase the potential of the copra industry, an official says.
KIK acting managing director Alan Aku said the event would see potential investors attend to see for themselves how the copra industry was being managed and where the opportunities lay.
The festival will be at the Sir John Guise Stadium in Port Moresby from Sept 26-28.
“This is the first ever event we will be hosting in the country to showcase the huge potential that our copra industry has,” Aku said.
“There will be booths for our 15 small to medium enterprises (SMEs) involved in the industry to showcase their products.
“At the same time, we will be having major copra investors involved in downstream processing of coconut products abroad also setting up their booths and displaying their technology and products here.”
Aku said he expected the two-day show to be an exciting event and hoped to see local SMEs, the business community as well as major cocoa investors interacting and discussing ways to develop the sector.