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Papua New Guinea continues to attract some of the world’s largest companies and remains a vibrant investment and business destination.
Prime Minister James Marape made the remarks during his speech at the PNG Business Advantage 2024 investment conference at the Brisbane Convention Centre in Brisbane, Australia today.
PM Marape addresses Australian investors
Papua New Guinea continues to attract some of the world’s largest companies and remains a vibrant investment and business destination.
Prime Minister James Marape made the remarks during his speech at the PNG Business Advantage 2024 investment conference at the Brisbane Convention Centre in Brisbane, Australia today.
Speaking virtually, the Prime Minister continued to advocate for Papua New Guinea as an investment destination. He said: “Papua New Guinea remains an investment hub. We have huge untapped potential in agriculture, tourism, and the expansion of small and medium enterprises. We continue to host companies such as Steamships Trading for a long time, which has been in business for over a hundred years. Some of the world’s largest companies have invested here and continue to stay here. Barrick Gold (Canada), Newmont (USA), ExxonMobil (USA), Total Energy (France), Santos (Australia), Telstra (Australia), JX Nippon (Japan) and Toyota (Japan) continue to invest in Papua New Guinea. This is a testament to our potential for long-term large-scale investment.” The Prime Minister stressed that Papua New Guinea is connected to the market through its existing membership in regional and multilateral institutions such as Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC),
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF); and bilaterally with its partners to ease market access and trade.
He said while there had been significant development in the mineral and gas sectors, agriculture, forestry, fisheries and tourism remained largely untapped and he invited Australian investors to develop those areas in Papua New Guinea.
The Prime Minister pointed to the development of the Special Economic Zones in Port Moresby, Lae, Madang and Manus as further investment platforms. He then highlighted the Government’s efforts to develop enabling infrastructure to support investors, specifically mentioning the Connect PNG programme and the construction of roads, bridges, wharves, airports and airstrips, power lines and telecommunications links through this flagship programme.
The Prime Minister acknowledged that Papua New Guinea faces challenges in terms of law and order, but he assured the Australian audience that the Government would continue to work hard to address those challenges by upgrading the policing and justice delivery capabilities of the police and judicial systems.
“We are expanding the police manpower through additional recruitment. We are integrating the Court of Appeal into the court structure to allow for better arbitration. We have increased the ceiling for judges and provided more funding to the judicial services sector. “Our central bank has an independent monetary policy and we are working to align it with the government’s fiscal policy while continuing to address foreign exchange issues,” said Prime Minister Marape. The Prime Minister thanked Australian investors who continue to invest in the country. “Papua New Guinea remains a solid place for Australian investment and I invite more to come here,” he said.
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