PM: Foreign firms safe

 PRIME Minister Peter O’Neill has described statements and the move by Trade, Commerce and Industry Richard Maru to have small businesses taken back for indigenous Papua New Guineans, as “unfortunate”. 

Maru has been vocal about local participation in small businesses, even to the point to taking over small to medium (SME) businesses currently run by foreigners in the country. However, O’Neill said the idea was entirely the minister’s and not the PNG Government’s.

He told Radio Australia yesterday that the Government was in support of the approach of getting Papua New Guineans into businesses in the country. 

O’Neill explained that the Government had no intention to try and take away businesses from anyone.

“Richard Maru has got the right intentions to get Papua New Guineans into small businesses and making sure those Papua New Guineans participate meaningfully in those businesses,” he said.

“The manner in which he made those statements is unfortunate but it’s not the aim of the government to try and stop foreign ownership of investments in the country but we are trying to target them into areas where Papua New Guineans are not able to do so,” O’Neill said. 

In his previous remarks, Maru had said he was not happy to find out that nine out of 10 companies in PNG were foreign owned and sent their profits abroad. 

He had said the State clearly was not against foreign investment in the country but there were certain small businesses that should be specifically reserved for local business people.