Marape assures SMEs of govt support

PRIME Minister James Marape has assured small to medium enterprises (SMEs) of his Government’s support going forward despite impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on the economy.
Speaking at the second PNG SME breakfast on Friday, Marape said: “The Government values the contributions of SMEs and is fully supportive of the sector that has fuelled the large businesses in the economy.
“The SMEs, with considerably lower investment cost than large businesses, help fuel the economy and lower poverty in communities by offering meaningful employment to locals. The Government will support the local SMEs to ensure PNG truly creates its own class of innovative wealthy entrepreneurs who contribute to our economy.
“The Covid-19 has affected businesses including major industries like shipping, mining, aviation, and the supply chain and PNG SMEs are no different.
“The impacts resulted in some SMEs and families losing jobs, income, profit, and above all, affected their operations.
“But we must take the Covid-19 pandemic as an opportunity to find means and ways to ensure our lives continue, be it in business, schools and Government. I urge everyone and SMEs out there to go into agriculture and produce goods that will help propel our local economy and the export sector.”
Marape said his Government would try to help create markets in the provinces and districts.
“The Government wants to ensure that the districts become buying points for food our people grow and taken to places like Lae, Madang and Port Moresby,” he said.
He said the Covid-19 also presented PNG the opportunity to be innovative where SMEs were capable of producing locally.
“Instead of relying on foreign goods, the SME sector, I am told, is leading the way in local production of basic daily goods like soap, butter, protein, honey, coffee and even our own ICT applications,” he said.
“This is innovation. Being able to come up with something our citizens can rely on and purchase, which are locally produced by our SMEs, and propel our economy by generating cash back into our communities.” He thanked the SME sector for contributing to the national economy by creating jobs and income and pledged Government support for growth and innovation.