Tax exemption for SEZ investors

By MAX ORAKA
THE 10-year tax exemption given by the Government for special economic zones (SEZ) investors is open to all investors but are conditional, says Special Economic Zones Authority (SEZA) chairman Varigini Badira.
Badira said the tax exemption was for any investor willing to invest in the country’s SEZs, whether domestic or foreign but the investor must show cause as to why it must continue receiving exemptions by how it fulfils the conditions of tax exemptions.
He said it was very important that they (investors) are able to create jobs for the people of the country.
He said that incentives would not be offered unless the investor satisfies the State that it has a viable business plan that it would create jobs for nationals.
“From there we can assess and proceed on with how we can support and help them establish new industries or bring in new technology into the country in specific areas that they are trying to develop.”
He said the tax incentives have been available for some time now but the difficult task was monitoring the outcomes of these incentives and whether or not they were beneficial to the nation.
“No law actually governs the key performance indicators (KPIs) and the monitoring and evaluation part of tax exemptions given by Government,” Badira said.
“As a result, one of the key mandates for SEZA is to ensure that we monitor the outcomes of our tax exemptions.
Badira said a KPI called the developer operator agreement was signed between SEZA and the investors to ensure that they must meet certain requirement and conditions for incentives.
“The investors are given 10-years exemptions and they must create 95 per cent jobs for Papua New Guineans and that is basically our key priority for KPIs spelt out in the agreement.
“We have a review done every year and if those requirements are not met, then we ensure that the tax exemptions are removed,” he said.