The Minister for International Trade and Investment, Hon. Richard Maru recently announced that the National Executive Council (NEC) has approved for Trade Commission Service to officially start with the appointment of Mr. Rex Paki as the Papua New Guinea Honorary Trade Commissioner to Australia based in Brisbane and His Excellency Dr. Bienvenido Tejano as Papua New Guinea’s Honorary Trade Commissioner to the Republic of the Philippines based in Manila.
“They are people of high repute and have extensive network and we feel they will best represent our interest. We are now looking at making similar appointments for other countries with priority being Indonesia. One of the prerequisites of the appointments is that those who will be appointed must be residents of the countries that we are appointing them to represent us. These appointments are very significant because Papua New Guinea is now moving from having foreign relationships based on diplomatic relationships to now having relationships anchored on trade and investment. We are appointing people who have knowledge and skills to help advance our two-way trade and investment relationships with major countries of the world including securing markets for our LNG gas, mining products, and products from the agriculture, forestry and the fisheries sectors,” said Minister Maru.
Minister Maru further stated: “The primary responsibility of the appointed Trade Commissioners will be to look for export markets for Papua New Guinea goods and to promote trade and investment opportunities in Papua New Guinea especially to attract foreign direct investments and attract investors in our Special Economic Zones. They will also be instrumental in helping us to arrange trade and investment conferences around the world like the recent one that was staged in Hong Kong last year.”
“The appointed Trade Commissioners are private citizens with their own office and setup and they will represent Papua New Guinea in handling all trade and investment enquiries and they will report directly to the Minister for International Trade & Investment and the Secretary for Department of International Trade & Investment in the discharge of their duties. Papua New Guinea will save K5 million a year by appointing Honorary Trade Commissioners who are not paid by the Government of Papua New Guinea and not a staff of our Diplomatic Service, however, they will work very closely with the Papua New Guinea Heads of Missions and diplomatic staff in all our high commissions and embassies throughout the world,” Minister Maru added.
