IPA keen to improve working environment

By CLARISSA MOI
THE Investments Promotion Authority aims to improve its working environment and align its divisions to meet Government development plans over the next two years, according to chairman Leon Buskens, pictured.
He was speaking during the launch of the authority’s strategic plan 2018-2020 in Port Moresby on Friday.
Buskens said they wanted to reach out to other provinces and improve their compliance standards.
“There are more memorandums of understandings with provinces to get our services out more,” he said.
“We want to get more companies to register to the compliance, and also do spot-checks to ensure companies out there are complying.”
Buskens said so far they had been able to lead a number of key Government agencies to look at safety, food safety and licences.
“At the end of the day, we want to do the right thing,” Buskens said.
“There are a few provinces that we’d like to complete by next year.
“The other is the ease of doing business issues in the country.”
Buskens said in 2016, PNG ranked 145th out of189 economies, which was an improvement from prior years.
“Over the last three years, we have improved by 26 places to 119/189 economies by 2017,” he said.
“That’s a big improvement, but we can do more.
“This year, PNG’s ranking improved 10 places to 109/190 economies. Our target is to get below 100 out of 190 countries.”
Buskens said 90 per cent of what was set out in the last strategic plan 2015-2017 was achieved and 10 per cent of it was carried forward to the 2018-2020 plan.
He said their focus now was to improve the operating environment with agencies and line their divisions to facilitate mandated legislation in line with Government’s Medium Term Development Plan 2 and the Alotau Accord 2.