Polye: Country will still prosper

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Works and Transport Don Polye has reassured the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) members that PNG will continue to support efforts to achieve a greater common prosperity and stability.
Speaking at the 18th Apec leaders meeting last week, Polye said PNG believed in and would continue to work towards integrating the economies of the Asia Pacific region by encouraging free and open trade and investment.
“We see this approach to be the most logical and beneficial for all member countries. The way forward for us is to ensure that our economy and that of the region is growing.
 “We believe that to truly achieve the objectives of the regional economic integration (REI), we need to be participating and represented in all trade and economic forums of the region such as Asean. Permanent membership in Asean will boost PNG’s drive to meet the Bogor goals,” Polye said.
He alluded to the fact that PNG had recently established a free trade agreement with the European Union, which is not a member of the Apec.
He said this was in line with the government’s continued effort to open up the economy in terms of trade and investment.
“We have opened up our telecommunication sector, the aviation industry, giving tax exemptions and have initiated land reform programmes, legislative reforms and continue to provide support to small to medium-sized enterprises and micro enterprises.
He admitted that while every economy had worked hard to achieve some of the goals of the Bogor vision, there were still many areas that needed to be improved in order to remove barriers to free trade and investment.
Polye pleaded on behalf of the least developed countries, for the industrialised economies to always consider the special problems that they faced because they stand to lose the most if their concerns are overlooked.
“Such issues include capacity building, ICT development, human resource development or capital development, infrastructure development, social services provision/availability, structured reforms to achieve and sustain good corporate and public governance,” he said.
Polye said that although these problems were also quite common in the bigger economies, they presented a more challenging problem for the smaller countries.