Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Hon. James Marape has joined world leaders in a virtual 2020 APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting to tackle the challenges and the solutions to COVID 19.
Participants included US President Donal Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, Korean President Moon Jae-In, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ader and many others.
According to Marape, he is honoured and privileged to be included in the roster, saying that APEC leaders represented countries controlling 60 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the world.
“Today was a privilege for PNG to also participate, virtually, at this forum," Prime Minister Marape said. "We are a small economy, very much dependent on what is happening globally, so it was a privilege to talk with the movers and shakers of the world economy. We spoke on par with them on how we are trying our very best to expose our small country, especially the potential we have."
He added that bigger APEC economies such as Malaysia, China, Korea, Australia, Japan, and Indonesia could buy products from PNG.
"Interfacing with them through open, robust dialogue with these big nations is very beneficial to Papua New Guinea," he said."I look forward to a time when all our produce can be easily exported to these economies.”
Prime Minister Marape said that he was supposed to attend the APEC 2019 in Chile but the significant event was cancelled.
"We are very fortunate to be in this exclusive club of APEC nations who we can sell our produce to and also interface," he said. "Tonight I was privileged to speak to all the world leaders including President Trump, President Xi Jinping, President Putin. In the Indo-Pacific neighbourhood, we had the Australian Prime Minister, New Zealand Prime Minister, Philippines President, Indonesian President, Malaysian Prime Minister, Singapore Prime Minister, and others. It was a great opportunity as PNG continues to interface with them. Hopefully, in due time, we will be able to produce enough to supply to these markets close to us."
