PNG looks to China

REPORTS by FRANK SENGE KOLMA in Sydney
PAPUA New Guinea is looking firmly to Asia and, in particular China, for trade, investment and concessional loans and it makes no apology for it, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill told an influential Australian think-tank institute in Sydney yesterday.
Addressing the Lowy Institute, O’Neill said: “There is no question the Asian Century offers tremendous opportunities for Papua New Guinea.
“Asia’s sustained growth and thirst for energy, in particular, is underpinning the contracts for our first LNG project. It is benefiting our mining sector and our forestry and our fisheries sectors.”
This direction would “never” jeopardise or replace the people-to-people relationship PNG had with Australia, O’Neill said. 
“The new leadership has a lot of respect for Australia and our relationship,” he said. “That can never be replaced by any other country.
“We do not have any strategic relations with China on defence and security. We have arrangements with the United States and Australia and we will maintain that.”
This should put to rest a persistent paranoia in Australia, evident by the questions put to O’Neill in Canberra on Wednesday and again in Sydney yesterday, about whether PNG was leaving the old guard and embracing a new one.
The shift to Asia and, in particular China, was inevitable, O’Neill said, adding that Australia, New Zealand, the United States and the rest of the world were headed in the same direction.
“Our potential to help meet the energy and mineral needs brought about by Asia’s growth is considerable,” he said.
O’Neill said PNG would soon be a major exporter of LNG to the world and, in particular Asia. In partnership with a Chinese company it was developing the country’s first cobalt mine to add to its stock of copper, gold and silver.
The other significant opportunity Asia’s growth provided for PNG was to meet the region’s food needs.
In that, O’Neill said, PNG was struggling even to the extent where it was unable to meet its own food needs despite the wide expanse of rich arable land.
He invited Australian farming expertise and technical knowhow to help in growing the food security needs of
PNG.