PM urges people to utilise funds to grow business

THE State has put in K80 million with National Development Bank (NDB) and people have to focus on growing their businesses, Prime Minister James Marape says.
The K80 million was out of the total allocation of K200 million by the Government, to support micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
Last month, the Government presented K100 million to Bank South Pacific (BSP).
The remaining K20 million was allocated to the Department of Commerce and Industry (DCI) to be distributed to the Investment Promotion Authority (IPA), Small and Medium Enterprise Corporation (SMEC) and the office of cooperative societies and other stakeholders to support their MSME programmes.
Speaking at the presentation yesterday, Marape said: “The decision to allocate K200 million to support MSMEs to become the main driver of our economy is based on experiences that other neighbouring economies in the region have achieved through their own MSME sector.
“My Government recognises the need for the establishment of credit facilities which would enable Papua New Guineans, including registered entities and cooperative societies, to have access to funds for new business start-ups and grow existing ones by injecting these funds into the economy.
“It is also our intention to empower and grow Papua New Guinea participation in MSMEs in downstream processing and diversification of business activities across all sectors of the economy.” A memorandum of agreement was signed between DCI and NDB two months ago to disburse funds to individual citizens, registered MSMEs and cooperative societies in the country under its credit facility known as “MSME credit facility”.