More Asian investment sought

PRIME Minister James Marape’s meeting with company representatives in Hong Kong was all about securing more investment for Papua New Guinea, an official says.
PNG Chamber of Mines and Petroleum President Anthony Smare said a reception hosted by the Acting Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong’s special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China and the commissioner of the Belt and Road project showed that Asia respected PNG’s drive for more Asian investment in the country.
At dinner with Marape was heads of the Metallurgical Corporation of China, Ramu Nico, SINOPE Hong Kong PNG Ltd, Swire, ExxonMobil, PanAust Mining Ltd, Law Society of Honk Kong, XCMG, Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong SAR), Sime Darby and Sun Engineering.
“There were 24 people at the dinner and the aggregate turnover of all those companies combined is over a trillion US dollars,” Smare said.
“It is not just a conference.
“We set up a series of meetings with large investors on investment opportunities.
“We use that to highlight conversations about activating new investment or new trade linkages, because just having a conference but the value of the conferences is in the relationships, conversations and relationships that happen on the margins, not just about what people talk about during the conference as part of the conference.
“The programme we set up is to unlock the particular type of investments that we feel is consistent with the Governments agenda and it is good to host these conferences in the hope that there are at a small level, SMEs and small investments but what really moves our country are the big investments.
“And they become a transformational impact in creating jobs.”