Minister for International Trade and Investment, Hon. Richard Maru invited the CEOs of provident fund, superannuation fund, sovereign wealth funds, trust funds, and social security administrations from across the Pacific who had gathered in Port Moresby for the 2023 Pacific Islands Investment CEO’s Forum to invest in Papua New Guinea (PNG), especially in the non- resource sector.
“We have exciting investment opportunities in Papua New Guinea. We are looking for investors in rice, chicken, dairy (we need two more dairies), feed, and beef industry, and also in the space of downstream processing of our coffee, cocoa, coconut, and fish (we want to process 100 percent of our catch in country). We are the market, so the investor does not have to look for the market. And once we are able to feed ourselves, then we can start exporting to other countries in the region as we already have the MSG Trade Agreement. There are also huge opportunities for investments in energy, solar farms, and hydros,” said Minister Maru in his address at the forum yesterday during the opening ceremony.
Minister Maru also extended an invitation to the CEOs to look at investing in PNG’s proposed Special Economic Zones (SEZs).
“Our Government has made a very important policy decision for PNG to go down the path of SEZs to be the primary drive of our economic growth. SEZs will drive the economic growth of our country, especially in the non-resource sector, into the future, this is going to be a major shift in policy. We are going to give incentives to attract investors to come in and be located in the SEZs because all the SEZs will require investors to make them work. Our challenge as the Government is to provide infrastructure and improve national security and climate to encourage the investors to come in and invest. We are going to drive this very aggressively,” said Minister Maru.
Minister Maru added that Marape-Rosso Government was very keen for PNG to transit as an economy anchored by resource sector to the non-resource sector.
“At where we are today, we have realized that we cannot over rely on the resource sector as we have in the last 47 years. We have to learn from countries like New Zealand. It has an internal revenue of K190 billion while ours sits at K19 billion this year when we have more land and more resources than New Zealand. Their economy is so strong, and it is now a first world country because they have been really focused on agriculture sector. This is the path that Papua New Guinea will follow and will start following this year. We are looking for investors in our non-resource sector,” said Minister Maru.
“I have seen the transition of Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia. They were just like us, but they transformed by going into downstream processing and manufacturing, and now they have become industrialized countries. This is the path that we want to follow,” added Minister Maru.
