Maru urges Aust to align aid with PNG priorities

AUSTRALIA must refocus and align its priorities to Papua New Guinea’s priorities, says Minister for International Trade and Investment Richard Maru.
He was referring to the PNG-Australia Comprehensive Strategic and Economic Partnership, specifically the Pillar 3 – Economic Partnership for Prosperity.
Minister Maru said this in his meeting with the Australian Minister for International Development and the Pacific Pat Conroy last week.
In the meeting, Maru said PNG was focused on growing its economy through the non-resource sectors and that was where Australia could step in to help.
“Over the last 47 years, PNG has been over reliant on the resource sector and look at where that has left us, the highest level of unemployment since independence, highest level of national debt and highest level of crime. It is a serious policy flaw that this Government is determined to fix during our term; our focus now is on reducing crime and growing the economy,” he said.
Maru said the Marape-Rosso Government would focus on agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and the services sector. “We need to replace all imports like rice, dairy products, coffee, and all other products that we can produce ourselves. We need to downstream process all our raw materials and we need to build our manufacturing sector. We accept the fact that we have a lot of challenges like constant power blackouts and high cost of energy. These are areas that Australia can easily help us,” he said.
Maru said Australian investors could also assist in the development of special economic zones.
“This (development of SEZs) is key to our plan to unlock the potential of our economy, so we want them (Australia) to support us in this area,” he said.
“We also want Australia to support us develop new industries like cotton and feed. These are areas that Australia is very good at and has very mature industries and they can assist us.”