Trade commissioners to be part of missions,says Rosso

THERE will be trade commissioners in Papua New Guinea’s diplomatic missions in Asia, Acting Prime Minister John Rosso says.
Rosso said there were markets domestically and internationally particularly in neighbouring Asian countries such as Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, China, India and South Korea.
“Our government now has strategic plans to enter these lucrative and niche markets including to export our vast organic produce and non-renewable resources,” he said.
“These will be done through carrying out substantive market analysis and placement of trade commissioners in PNG diplomatic post/missions in the Asian region.”
Rosso said partnerships through foreign direct investment were highly encouraged and would assist in developing our value-add and down-stream processing facilities locally in PNG’s special economic zones to bring in much needed revenue streams to support the national budget.
He said PNG exports totalled US$9.34 billion (about K33 billion) while foreign direct investment for 2020 was at US$940 million (about K3.3 billion), a 3.87 per cent increase from 2019.
“This is an exciting time to increase trade revenue and harness business and investment opportunities,” he said.
“The creation of the recent Trade and Investment ministry will take carriage and coordination of our investment priorities to grow the economy, bring in innovation and state of the art technology and facilities, transfer of skills and knowledge and increase foreign direct investment.
“PNG continues to be guided by its ‘Friends to all and enemies to none’ and ‘Active and selected engagement foreign’ policies in conducting its international affairs.
“Our foreign policy must be immediately reviewed to enable a strategic outlook and focus with our bilateral and multilateral partners to draw and source development assistance and foreign direct investment that will complement and support our development agenda.”
Rosso said this would also support the government’s efforts to link provinces and districts and provide market access and basic services to more people of the country.