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PNG EITI SCORES MODERATE RATING IN VALIDATION
The third EU-PNG business, trade, and investment Conference is a demonstration of the European Union’s commitment to strengthen business, trade, and investment ties between PNG, member states of the EU-Pacific Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), and the Asia-Pacific region as a whole.
This year’s edition attracted more than 700 participants from both the government and private sector in Europe and Papua New Guinea including participants from other Pacific island countries.
The conference held from 11-12 October 2022 at the APEC Haus in Port Moresby, was preceded by a European economic diplomacy week and ended with an international press visit to the provinces.
The business conference was highly valued for its practical approach including the opening speech by the Minister for International Trade Richard Maru who provided an overview of the PNG strategy to further deepen the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).
The presence of Minister Maru and his vice minister Kessy Sawang, who is one of the two women MPs in the National Parliament, showed an unprecedented engagement from the PNG Government and a positive sign for the future sustainability of the event which the European Union will cease to fund after next year’s edition.
The French Ambassador to PNG Guillaume Lemoine, Minister for International Trade Richard Maru, and vice Minister for International Trade Kessy Sawang were guest speakers at the conference.
The European Union is the main importer of PNG agricultural products with special mention of premium products. In terms of PNG exports in the last 5 years, Europe stands third behind Asia and Oceania.
In addition, the EU has committed more than EUR 100 million to support trade-related stakeholders and agriculture in key commodities since 2016 and committed more than EUR 37 million regionally under the Pacific Regional and Integration Support (PRISE) Programme.
Finally, the most beneficial Free Trade Agreement for Papua New Guinea is with the European Union namely the EPA signed in 2009. his EPA allows all products from PNG to be duty-free, and quota-free into the EU market including all tuna processed in PNG even if caught by non-PNG vessels.
In the case of fisheries, the EPA has had a significant impact creating more than 12,000 jobs in PNG, mainly for women, and multiplied by 50 the value of PNG fish exports to the EU to over 200 million US dollars.
European Union’s support has targeted key PNG commodities like cocoa, fisheries, vanilla, coconut, and kava. The EU further supported upskilling of key stakeholders in business, trade, and investment including key PNG departments, agencies, and laboratories.
The two-day conference conducted in parallel with a Business Fair including PNG SMEs from different provinces provided an opportunity for participants to increase their networking prospects and likewise gave small and medium enterprises (SMEs) an opportunity not only to display and sell their products but to find a potential market.
The two days discussions and target market analysis presentations generated great interest from participants including those who joined online. The level of participation showed that the interest was not only growing within PNG but in other EPA countries and generally from the Pacific island countries.
The main messages delivered during the conference were: the importance of strengthening trade and investment ties between the EU and PNG through the full utilisation of the Economic Partnership Agreement, skills development, global value chains, regional integration, good governance, social enterprises, and corporate social responsibility and the importance of sound regulatory framework.
This two-day conference was completed by the European Economic Diplomacy Week supported by European companies in PNG, the business trade and investment technical workshop, and the press visit to Kokopo in East New Britain and Buka in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville provided added value to the conference.
The complementary events highlighted the EU’s commitment to support the development of EU trade and investment in Papua New Guinea as well as promote sustainable economic development in the country.
The EU is already cosying in coordination with local authorities on the scope and organisation of the 4th conference to be held in 2023.
PNG EITI Scores Moderate Rating in Validation Results
By Miriam Mandibi
Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) International team comprised of the EITI Executive Director Mark Robinson, EITI Director for Asia and the Pacific Mr. Emmanuel Bria, and the Country Lead for Papua New Guinea has successfully completed its findings of Papua New Guinea’s second EITI Validation (Country Assessment Report) with its formal announcement on Friday 11th of November, 2022 at Treasury Office Port Moresby.
The Validation result comes after a month of consulting with various players consisting of the representatives from the extractive companies, government departments, extractive stateowned entities, and civil society bodies to provide leadership and guidance in guiding the implementation of the EITI Best Practice Standard in PNG’s mining and Petroleum sector.
PNGEITI Head of National Secretariat Mr. Lucas Alkan welcomed the EITI Board’s candid assessment and decision on PNG’s efforts to implement the EITI, describing it as a fair assessment, taking into account the efforts put in by multi stakeholder Groups over the years since 2013 when the government signed up to implement the EITI.
“We consider the second country assessment as consolidating the correct actions that have been taken and the work currently in progress. PNG has made significant progress in implementing the EITI relative to other economies around the world that are implementing the same EITI standards”.
Giving his assessment so far regarding EITI’s role in Papua New Guinea the Executive Director of EITI International, Mr. Mark Robinson stated that PNG needs more transparency in revenue collection for public information, the room for contract transparency, and lastly for the beneficiaries in the extractive sector to benefit well in their resources. Another key success area noted is the well-structured electronic data currently available by the Mineral Resource Authority that provides good management of the mineral resources.
“EITI has to be meaningful to the local people and how it will benefit them socially and economically in a proper way,” Alkan said.
EITI Director for Asia Pacific Mr. Emmanuel Bria explained further that EITI is an independent National Secretariate that works in line to make sure the government’s local content is met along with the extractive sector (oil, gas, and mineral) in a more transparent way to benefit its citizens according to the set international standards and its jurisdiction.
PNG operationalized EITI implementation in 2015 and published its first report in 2016. Since then, it has so far published seven country reports covering successive financial years. The 2021 and 2020 reports are now being worked on and are expected to be published by December this year.
Minister Maru: Australia Must Focus Partnership with PNG’s Preferences
By Paul Oeka
Minister for International Trade and Investment Hon. Richard Maru said Australia must refocus and align their priorities to Papua New Guinea’s preferences.
He was referring to the Papua New Guinea-Australia Comprehensive Strategic and Economic Partnership, specifically the Pillar 3-Economic Partnership for Prosperity. Minister Maru said this in his meeting with the Australian Minister for International Development and the Pacific, Hon. Pat Conroy last week.
During the meeting, Minister Maru said that Papua New Guinea (PNG) was now focusing on growing its economy through the non-resource sectors and that was where Australia could step in and assist.
“Over the last 47 years, PNG has been over-reliant on the resource sector, and look at where that had left us- the highest level of unemployment since independence, the highest level of the national debt, and the highest level of crime. It is a serious policy flaw that this Government is determined to fix during our term; our focus is now on reducing crime and growing the economy,” said Minister Maru.
“We will focus on the agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and the services sector. We need to replace all imports like rice, dairy products, coffee, and all other products that we can produce ourselves. We need to downstream process all our raw materials and we need to build our manufacturing sector. We accept the fact that we have a lot of challenges like constant power blackouts and a high cost of energy. These are areas that Australia can easily help us,” he said.
Minister Maru said that Australian investors could also assist PNG in the development of its Special Economic Zones.
“This (development of SEZs) is key to our plan to unlock the potential of our economy, so we want them (Australia) to support us in this area,” said Minister Maru.
“We also want Australia to support us develop new industries like cotton and feed. These are areas that Australia is very good at and has very mature industries and they can assist us”.
“So, under this partnership (Papua New Guinea- Australia Comprehensive Strategic and Economic Partnership), when Australia is looking at aid flows to PNG, they should focus on these sectors which will give us greatest impacts in terms of employment and wealth creation; they must not focus on the areas that they define but on our key focus areas that we define,” said Minister Maru.
Meanwhile, Minister Maru also advised Minister Conroy that he had approved for PNG National Trade Office to work with the Australian Government to engage an independent consultant to undertake a Feasibility Study into a possible Trade Agreement between PNG and Australia.
