Minister: Agriculture will drive SME policy

 AGRICULTURE is the major vehicle that will drive the recently launched Small to Medium Enterprise Policy.

Minister for Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology and Gazelle MP Malakai Tabar (pictured) said agriculture was the main environment in which SME would effectively work.  

“In every society, a primary production is essential and everybody must be encouraged to grow something productive and make use of every square metre of land,” Tabar said.

He said it was the responsibility of this country to improve and make sure land was utilised and used for farming.

He said in Asia, terraces were used for growing rice but Papua New Guinea continued to waste more than K700 million to import rice.

“Primary production will trigger a secondary production and that is where SME comes in,” he said.  

“That will later involve processing, transportation and assembly and stock broking accounting.

“But before we go to SME, we need to be producing cocoa, growing rice and growing a lot of other crops. We will never achieve Vision 2050 if we do not start using every square metre of our land.”

“If you cannot grow anything on your land, your dreams will eventually evaporate away,” Tabar said.

He said Papua New Guinea had a transitional economy driven by mining and energy boom.

“Over the last decade, Papua New Guinea has experienced unprecedented economic growth, which resulted in a mismatch between the supply and demand of specialised human capital.”