Minister to meet with NZ reps on agriculture

INTERNATIONAL Trade and Investment Minister Richard Maru is in New Zealand today to hold a three-day bilateral trade meeting with the New Zealand Government.
During his visit Maru will have meetings with the New Zealand Agriculture, Hunting and Fishing, Forestry, and Trade Minister Todd McClay, the New Zealand Stock Exchange, Financial Markets Authority, PNG-New Zealand Business Council, and also meet with other potential New Zealand investors.
Maru said the PNG Government had to learn from the experience of New Zealand’s capital market industry and seek their government’s support to transform the Securities Commission of PNG and the capital market industry of PNG.
“Apart from the capital market industry, I will visit New Zealand’s chicken industry and invite the New Zealand investors in this industry to come and invest in PNG because we still continue to import over K100 million worth of chicken products annually especially from New Zealand and this results in loss of jobs and revenue for our small businesses and our industry,” he said.
“We want to stop that. We also do not want to be exposed to the risk of imported chicken diseases like the Avian Influenza and others. We want to produce enough day-old chicks to supply the entire need of our nation, our farmers, and our industry so we are able to produce enough chicken locally to meet the growing demand for chicken. We also want to meet and invite some potential New Zealand investors to invest in our special economic zones,” Maru said.
He added that New Zealand was a world leader in agriculture technology and it was an important partner country that maintained strong economic growth, strength in trade exports and a close market which was of strategic importance to PNG.
Maru said PNG could learn from New Zealand to unleash the potential of its agriculture sector and New Zealand could help with more scholarships to train agricultural scientists in all aspects of agriculture including biosecurity which New Zealand was renowned for globally.
Agriculture Minister John Boito is set to visit NZ to sign a memorandum of understanding on agriculture cooperation later this year.