PNG can set up businesses in Europe, says envoy

THERE is nothing stopping Papua New Guinea businesses setting up in Europe, says Papua New Guinea Ambassador to the European Union Joshua Kalinoe.
Kalinoe said the EU economic partnership agreement provides that platform.
“There is a lot of opportunities for import/export, for both ways for export to take place in services as well as in goods.”
He said the agreement in its present stage was not about negotiation but time for implementation.
Kalinoe said in Port Moresby last week during a panel discussion on whether the EU was a feasible option for PNG companies.
The session was part of the EU-PNG Business and Investment Summit.
“Under that agreement, there is a lot of opportunities for two-way trade, nothing is stopping a Papua New Guinean small business going to Greece for example, and set up a coffee shop, and use the connections in PNG to import into Greece a high quality bio type products, same as cocoa, the Queen Emma-branded chocolate, which we have tested in the mini-fair we had in the embassy in March,” he said.
PNG is the first country in the Pacific to have ratified and implemented a trade agreement with the European Union.
It grants full access duty free, quota free for all products made in PNG to the European Union market that comprises 500 million consumers.