PRIME Minister Hon. James Marape has told Pacific Islands Forum leaders that the region must strengthen and deepen its unity as it navigates an increasingly fragile global and strategic environment.
Speaking during the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Plenary Session in Koror, Palau, today, Prime Minister Marape was contributing to discussions under Agenda 2 on the evolving regional and strategic environment and how Pacific political leadership can strengthen and deepen regionalism in support of the region’s collective interests.
“The world around us is fragile,” Prime Minister Marape said.
“Our strength is in our collective unity.”
He said geopolitical tensions, climate change and global economic instability were creating pressures that were being felt directly by Pacific Island countries.
“Geopolitics causes fragility. Issues related to climate change cause fragility. Our small economies feel the price pain of imported inflation,” Prime Minister Marape
said.
He pointed to Papua New Guinea’s experience with rising fuel costs as an example of how decisions and conflicts elsewhere in the world could impose significant costs on Pacific economies.
Prime Minister Marape told leaders that his Government had recently been required to provide an additional US$300 million in support for fuel costs, placing further pressure on public finances as the Government sought to cushion more than 10 million Papua New Guineans from higher prices.
He said such costs illustrated the vulnerability of Pacific economies to events over which they had little or no control.
“This was totally unnecessary if someone somewhere else decided not to be at war,” Prime Minister Marape said.
“These are some of the exposures we face in our countries.”
Prime Minister Marape said these global pressures made Pacific regionalism even more important.
He urged Pacific nations to remain together as a strong bloc, protecting their collective interests rather than allowing geopolitical competition among larger powers to divide the region.
He reaffirmed Papua New Guinea’s support for the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent and the Ocean of Peace concept advanced by Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka.
Prime Minister Marape said the Ocean of Peace embodied the Pacific’s desire to remain peaceful and united despite increasing strategic competition around the region.
“Our collective Pacific continent, the Blue Pacific Continent, remaining together as one people — that is important,” he said.
Prime Minister Marape said the Pacific Islands Forum had consistently provided the region with a collective voice and maintained the principle of being “friends to all and enemies to none.”
“That is intrinsically Pacific. That is intrinsically Christian. That is who we are,” he said.
He said Pacific leaders must continue their conversations and develop strategies to mitigate the effects of geopolitical competition, climate change and global economic instability without being drawn into conflicts and rivalries originating outside the region.
Prime Minister Marape said Papua New Guinea would continue to support a strong and united Pacific Islands Forum, with Pacific countries working collectively to protect their shared interests and ensure the region remained peaceful, resilient and united.