O’Neill happy with relations

 PRIME Minister Peter O’Neill has described current opportunity to expand business, trade and investment with Europe and North America as the greatest it has been for Papua New Guinea

He delivered the keynote address to the inaugural United Kingdom-PNG Trade and Investment Forum yesterday.

“Papua New Guinea must look beyond traditional markets for our business, trade and investment as we strengthen our position in the global economy,” O’Neill said.

“We will always have a strong trade relationship with Australia to the south, but we must also look north, east and west and continue to expand our horizons.

“Europe has opened the door to Papua New Guinea and we will continue to build on this engagement particularly for our agricultural products. We have opened new trade links with Japan and China, and engagement with North American companies is also growing.

“This is a strategic approach to positioning Papua New Guinea to take advantage of global opportunity and the response has been positive.

“It is also easier for Papua New Guineans to travel to Indonesia, or Japan or England so we have to take advantage of those opportunities.”

O’Neill said there would be many delegates at UK-PNG trade and investment forum who had never been to Papua New Guinea, and this would be their first insight to the nation’s change over in years.

“Our nation is a long way from London, but global capital and business today knows no bounds.

“This will be an informative forum for a number of large investors and we look forward to welcoming their investment to PNG.” The 

inaugural United Kingdom – Papua New Guinea Trade and Investment Forum was anticipated to engage around 250 European and North American business people and investors.

Following the forum O’Neill will meet Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, before a series of meetings with business representatives in Brussels and Paris.