Photo: Clarence Hoot
The Investment Promotion Authority (IPA) delivered a stakeholder awareness and training workshop for the New Guinea Islands Region in Kokopo from 27th – 28th October 2022. The awareness was geared towards training and building the capacity of New Guinea Islands Provincial Commerce Officers and Business Development Officers from the districts by providing awareness on the IPA functions and the key legislative and systems changes and processes. The awareness focused on different Acts administered by the IPA, functional duties of the key Divisions and Units within the Investment Promotion Authority, and current regulatory and legislative reforms that IPA is undertaking. Furthermore, it focussed mostly on the rollout of the Online Registry Service. The overall program was based on the theme: Connecting everyone and making our system work’
Provincial commerce officers and BDOs from the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, West New Britain, East New Britain, New Ireland and Manus provinces participated in the two-days training sessions.
The training was officiated by the Managing Director of the Investment Promotion Authority, Mr. Clarence Hoot. Mr. Hoot outlined the main aim of the training program and challenged the participants to learn as much as they could and be able to deliver the services in their respective provinces for our simple people. Senior Managers and officers from IPA conducted the two days training program. The participants expressed their sincere appreciation and gratitude to IPA for facilitating such a useful training which now empowers them to better serve the people in rural areas. After the training, the commerce officers were awarded with certificates of participation.
There was also notable interest from the general public in East New Britain Province who attended the awareness program. Many expressed their interest indicating IPA should continue to roll out such awareness and training programs annually and empower Papua New Guineans to venture into SME businesses. Some of the general comments received from the participants include awareness on how to assist SMEs to bring their products to the market and opportunities for joint venture (JV) partnerships with foreign investors.
Complementing IPA’s awareness program, there were also sessions delivered by other private and government agencies, especially the National Development Bank (NDB) and the Internal Revenue Commission (IRC). The NDB made its presentation on its small business loan (SME) products whilst IRC presented on Small Business Tax Regime.
The IPA team accompanied by some provincial commerce officers also made awareness presentations to the students of the University of Natural Resources and Environment which was well received. The students and lecturers registered their interest for future such events to be delivered as well.
Mr. Hoot has made a call that provincial commerce offices and business development officers within the Region should work more closely with IPA Regional Offices around the country to assist with their roles in ensuring service delivery right down to the people that matter - our rural population. Officers from the Provincial Commerce Divisions should move away from their traditional way of operations and become more supportive to businesses and general clients by providing support services. The IPA online registry platform by now is almost accessible to all which allows people to formalize and operate their businesses.
