Govt to support fishing policies

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By GYNNIE KERO
THE Government will work with stakeholders in the fishing industry to implement the policy initiatives announced by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill last week.
Fisheries and Marine Resources Minister Patrick Basa told people in the industry during a breakfast last Thursday that the initiatives would create more jobs.
The initiatives include a rebate offered to fishing companies to bring their catches to be processed.
“The Government forecasts that this would prompt the existing processors to lift their capacity from about 30 per cent to about 70 per cent,” he said.
Basa said it would create more jobs and ensure revenue and foreign exchange lost to countries such as the Philippines and Thailand was retained.
Some companies claimed they had not seen the details of the rebate scheme, and were worried that its fast implementation would lead to financial losses, resulting in the closure of their businesses.
Among their concerns is the high cost of doing business in Papua New Guinea, poor infrastructure, lack of adequate and reliable power supply, and high labour cost.
Basa said the Government would work with them to ensure their concerns were addressed.
He told them that the Government was not against companies but wanted a greater return to the people for the harvest of their resources.
Basa instructed the National Fisheries Authority to work with the industry representatives in the next three months to develop a way forward.
He directed, among other things, for the NFA to identify the catches by fleets over the last five years in Papua New Guinea and where these catches were landed or exported.
“We need to know the exact volume of catches and fleets. I want to also know the volume of catches by fleets landed in Bangkok and the Philippines,” he said.