The Papua New Guinea-Australia bilateral relations must advance to another level and must be anchored on Trade and Investment relations between the two countries, says the Minister for International and Trade and Investment, Hon Richard Maru. Minister Maru said this during his bilateral meeting with his counterpart Australian Trade Minister, Hon. Don Farrell in Australia at the margins of the PNG-Australia Ministerial Forum held last week. The 29th PNG-Australia Ministerial Forum was convened on the back of the historic visit by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to PNG.
“For the last 47 years the current status quo has been in favour of Australia. PNG’s exports to Australia are mainly gold and other precious metals which comprise over 98% of total exports. This means less than 2% are from the non-extractive sector and is valued at K50 million per annum. Australia’s total exports to PNG is estimated over K500 million, which translates to a ratio 1:10. A very huge trade imbalance,” said Minister Maru.
Minister Maru said that Papua New Guinea (PNG) would like to see a win-win whereby PNG can also export its goods and services into the Australian market.
“The current status quo is heavily skewed in Australia’s favour. Without taking actions to shrink this huge trade deficit with Australia. PNG is losing thousands of job opportunities and much income especially for our villagers, farmers and our tax revenue. This is the reason why PNG withdrew from the PACER Plus trade negotiations that where not addressing the very issues that continued to see PNG locked of exporting its competitive products and services to Australia. Without attending to these issues, the current PNG-Australia bilateral trade assessment study will be another a waste of time” said Minister Maru.
In this regard, Minister Maru requested his counterpart to assist PNG in building its capacity to export to the Australian market in terms of both market access and market entry or the “last mile”.
“This will address the trade imbalance and create an even level playing field for the two countries, then we can talk about free trade agreement which will create win-win opportunities for both countries,” said Minister Maru.
“I want to see PNG export its taro, casava, banana and others to the Australian market, particularly targeting the over 60,000 Papua New Guineans diaspora living in Australia. The two countries need to work together to ensure the bio security issues and other technical barriers to trade that is affecting PNG’s exports are addressed especially in getting PNG produce on the shelves in big Australian supermarkets such as Coles or Aldi. This must be the year of action. No more talkfest. We have been talking and asking for the same market access for the last 20 years in every Ministerial Forum without any tangible results. Without results this year there will be no more trade and investment talks with Australia,” said Minister Maru.
Minister Maru said that PNG currently faces huge challenges with high unemployment, increased law and order, foreign exchange issues and high inflation amongst others.
Minister Maru stated that despite the challenges, there were many opportunities for Australia private sector to invest in PNG.
“PNG is an economy in transition and the Marape-Ross Government is looking to partner with likeminded countries ready to invest in PNG,” said Minister Maru.
Minister Maru explained that one of the vehicles that the Marape-Rosso Government would be utilizing to grow the PNG economy was through the creation of SEZs. He informed his counterpart of the SEZ study currently being undertaken by the Japan Development Institute (JDI), the Oversees Development and of the SEZ Summit that will be held in April this year. Minister Maru further informed him of his recent visits to the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand to learn from south-east Asian neighbours of the successes of their utilization of the SEZs for economic growth and development.
“PNG is now walking across Asia to find investors and Australia can either join the trend or miss the opportunity. Under the Marape-Rosso Government PNG is in transition and is actively seeking investors from Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia to invest in domestic industries for onshore processing of natural resources and new dairy, rice and feed industries in PNG,” said Minister Maru.
Minister Maru whilst acknowledging Australia for agreeing to process visas for Papua New Guineans within two weeks in the country, said a lot more needed to be done to allow the issuance of visas upon arrival. Minister Maru said this was very important to encourage for trade and investment to flow between the two countries.
“PNG citizens are issued visa on arrival by Singapore, Philippines, Israel, UK and others but does not see the reason why PNG citizens are not issued visa upon arrival by Australia. More work needs to be done in this regard to allow the movement of people between the two countries,” said Minister Maru.
Minister also encouraged Australia to have a program in place for semi and skilled Papua New Guineans to access the Australia labour market. Minister Maru reiterated that besides the Labour Mobility scheme for unskilled workers, PNG was also keen on accessing opportunities for semi-skilled and skilled workers to work in Australia, for example, in the area of age care.
“PNG would really like to see more skilled labour moving to the Australian Labour market,” said Minister Maru.
Minister Maru extended an open invitation to Minister Farrell to visit PNG. Senator Farrell acknowledged PNG as a valuable partner and neighbour in an increasingly unstable world. He stated that Australia saw immense value in that relationship and was favourable to assist where possible.
