Meeting on rural entrepreneurship, investment held

AN inaugural project steering committee (PSC) meeting of the EU-PNG Development Corporation programme called support to rural entrepreneurship, investment and trade (Streit) PNG was held yesterday in Port Moresby.
The meeting was co-chaired by the Department of National Planning and Monitoring (DNPM) and the European Union (EU) and saw multi-stakeholder participants, including the Department of Agriculture and Livestock, National Fisheries Authority, Cocoa Board, Department of Commerce and Industry, Department of Communication Information Technology and Energy and the United Nations.
Secretary for DNPM Koney Samuel, said the Streit PNG Programme was a massive investment for the country and one that would have significant impact on the local economy if progressed effectively.
“As the national agency responsible for coordinating and monitoring the implementation of the medium term development plan (MTDP) III, and as the co-chair of the Streit PSC, DNPM will closely monitor the progress of Streit and help ensure the achievement of the targets and objectives that will be set during the one-year inception phase that has now commenced,” Samuel said.
Samuel welcomed the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the UN as the appointed lead agency to oversee the implementation of the project with a number of its UN sister agencies, and in close collaboration with the national and provincial sector agencies.
FAO chief technical adviser Anthony Bennett said the overall objective of the project was about increasing sustainable and inclusive economic development of rural areas.