The Honorable Minister for International Trade and Investment, Richard Maru, MP, announced recently that the Marape Government has made a historic decision to establish for the first time, the National Trade Commission Service, starting with establishing eight new Trade Missions around the world this year with the first Trade Mission to be established in Shanghai, China.
Papua New Guinea’s Trade Missions will be equivalent to Austrade of Australia, New Zealand Trade Enterprise (NZTE), Canadian Trade Commission Service and Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation where our trade representatives will have their own establishments either in foreign missions or stand-alone offices or through the appointment of both Papua New Guinea Trade Commissioners or Honorary Trade Commissioners throughout the world starting with eight (8)countries. The primary responsibility of the Trade Commissioner is to look for export markets for Papua New Guinea goods and to promote trade investment opportunities in Papua New Guinea especially to attract foreign direct investments. One of the major priorities is to attract investors to invest in our Special Economic Zones (SEZ) and also in Free Trade Negotiations with various countries starting with China and Indonesia.
Minister Maru said, “This move is very grateful for the support we have received from the Prime Minister and Cabinet and is very timely as we prepare for the historic SEZ Summit which will be opened by the Prime Minister this Sunday”. “For too long Papua New Guinea has been an exporter of raw materials to the world, this will no longer be the case. The Marape Government is serious about processing all our raw materials in the country including all our fish, logs, cocoa, coffee, and other agriculture commodities and even our gas and mining resources. To do that we need to bring in capital, technology, and this will require very significant investment into the billions and billions of kina. The Governments other priority is on green and clean energy, we need to find alternative sources of energy which are clean so that we can do away with expensive fossil fuels that we have been using pre-independence and post-independence. The country needs cheap and reliable electricity to reduce our cost of production across all industries so that Papua New Guinea can become a competitive major manufacturing and industrialised country in the future. Without investors from across the world, it will be difficult to realise our vision to build a bigger and most sustainable and robust economy as we work towards achieving economic independence by 2032,” Minister Maru said.
The first 8 Trade Commissions to be established are: Shanghai - China, Brisbane - Australia, Bangkok - Thailand, Jakarta – Indonesia, Brussels – European Union, Dubai – United Arab Emirates, Manila - Philippines and Singapore. Those offices will either be manned by Papua New Guinean Trade Commissioners or Honorary Trade Commissioners from those respective countries with the challenge of funding this Trade Mission, we will evaluate and deploy the most cost effective strategies to set up all this missions this year.
“The Ministry is extremely grateful that the number of SOEs have express interest to fund a number of the Trade Commissions. In terms of priority, the first Trade Commission we want to establish is Shanghai in China. It ranks as our highest priority as China is now offering through the President to buy all our LNG gas and our other mining and petroleum products, our fish, logs and all the other goods. China has the capacity to buy all our goods and that has been expressed in numerous meetings we have had and the Prime Minister has had with the Chinese President,” Minster Maru added.
Minister Maru also announced that he will be sending his Department Acting Secretary to Shanghai on the 13 May, 2023 to look around for office space and they will be working very closely with the Government of China and the Papua New Guinea Embassy in Beijing to assist identify a suitable office space that can be obtained in a right location to establish the Trade Mission which Minister Maru wants the Prime Minister Hon. James Marape, MP, to officially open when he visits China later this year. This is a very significant move to show the country and the world that Papua New Guinea will no longer continue to do trading with only its traditional trading partners who are not buying large volumes of Papua New Guinea products.
“We are diversifying our trading partners starting this year with the view to securing Papua New Guinea’s economic future. Under our “Walk across Asia” Trade and Investment focus, we are keen and focused on developing Trade and Investment ties with China, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, United Arab Emirates, European Union, Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia etc. This is only the start; we are going to look at opening up our Trade Missions after this initial eight. “Economic Security, Food Security, Energy Security and Climate Change Security is our most important priorities, and we will be working to forge new trade and economic partnerships with various countries starting with the first eight that we feel, that we know provide the best opportunities for more investment into PNG and good investors to secure more export opportunities for our products to be sold to the world at large. We thank the Marape Government for recognising that International Trade and Investment is key to securing our economic future. The decision to establish the Ministry of International Trade and Investment is long overdue and we are determined to deliver many large-scale investment projects that will create thousands of jobs, bring in foreign currency and really help to develop our economy now and well into the future. We hope to announce up to five new Special Economic Zones (SEZ) that we will prioritise to develop this year at the summit. The summit will not be another talk feast but will be action oriented and work has already started with the Paga Hill development as our first large scale privately owned SEZ,” Minister Maru alluded.
The Minister for International Trade and Investment said “I finally want to commend the Prime Minister for his bold decision as a government to introduce for the first time the Trade Commission Service as a key strategy to find new markets for Papua New Guinea products and to bring in more foreign direct investment into Papua New Guinea which is so critical to building a more robust, inclusive and sustainable economy that will help to create jobs, create wealth for our citizens and build a bigger and stronger and more prosperous Papua New Guinea”.
The Department for International Trade and Investment will be advertising very shortly for applicants to fill the positions of Trade Commissioners in the first eight Trade Missions. The Department is looking for very highly qualified Papua New Guineans who have a very strong commercial background minimum of Masters Degree qualifications with a strong academic background and work experience who can deal with the corporate world in driving PNG's trade agenda in terms of securing export markets and bring in foreign direct investments.
