Transcript
RICHARD MARU: To grow the economy we must increase exports and decrease imports, or replace imports. That's how you grow the economy. And develop the private sector even more, by attracting even more large scale investments. So that's really the focus of our government. and we realise that we need to bring a number of new LNG projects online as soon as we can. Also the two gold mines that we are working on: Wapi Golfu and Frieda River. And we are also keen on investing in the agriculture sector in a very, very big way. As you know, we've just started the first dairy farm in Papua New Guinea with our Israeli friends, the LR Group. It's going very well. They can;t keep up with the sale of their milk, in fact they're always running out every day. But I think too a lot of our friends have said we can't grow our own rice, we can't grow our own dairy, we can't grow the wheat, and this is... we're now beginning to realise we can do all of that, and we are looking for partners, including companies from New Zealand to go and help us to develop the dairy industry, to help us to grow the chicken industry, especially the parent stock industry, which is a segment within the poultry industry that we need to be engaged in. Over the last forty years we've been importing all the parent stock from New Zealand. We don't need to do that. We should start our own industry, with the support of leading New Zealand companies. We should start the industry in PNG to create jobs and also start exporting the parent stock to the rest of the world.
JOHNNY BLADES: PNG has been wary of these regional trade deals. Don't you think New Zealand should be giving more access to PNG products here, including some of the great agricultural produce from PNG?
RM: We do appreciate that New Zealand has some of the best biosecurity standards of the world, and clearly the New Zealand government would want to protect its local industry, we do appreciate that. But at the same time, if they want to do a trade deal with PNG it has to be on a on a win-win basis. As the former Trade Minister I've always opposed PACER Plus because with PACER Plus it'll be one-way traffic, all of which will be going from Australia and New Zealand into PNG, and not the other way. We hardly trade with Australia and New Zealand. That's why I've never been in favour of PACER Plus.
JB: And what's the reason why PNG hardly trades with Australia and New Zealand, what do you put it down to?
RM: Well they have biosecurity standards that make it very hard for our goods to come into their markets. They are able to bring in imports from other countries that are a lot cheaper than what they can bring in from PNG. For example, the Australians bring pawpaw in from Fiji, and taro, and we can't even get our products into this market. So these are some serious difficulties we've had over the years. And I'm not sure that there's genuine interest in helping us to access these markets. That's always the challenge for us. When you look at it the other way, for example in New Zealand's case the trade is 10 to 1 in New Zealand's favour. If they want to trade with us, it has to be on a mutually acceptable basis, where we are basically trading the same volume of goods as they're trading. And for now, there's no incentive to do so. That is why we'll always be against PACER Plus.
JB: And have you spoken about trade today (in discussions with New Zealand's government)? I know you're not the Trade Minister now but are the governments talking about these things together?
RM: I did mention that to the Foreign Minister. We would be keen to talk about a bilateral trade agreement with New Zealand which is on a win-win basis. And that will be the same message I would be conveying to the Australians. We want to trade, we want to open up the market, provided it's on a win-win basis. we've done the analysis and we've seen that if we went through with PACER Plus we are going to lose big time as an economy, which we can hardly do right now.
JB: How tight are things for PNG financially? Because if teachers, doctors and nurses aren't getting paid regularly, do you think things are going to stay like that for a while?
RM: Doctors and teachers are getting paid every fortnight, there's no doubt about that. I don't know who is saying they're not getting paid every fortnight. They are getting paid every fortnight. So there's no issues with the government payroll.
JB: And teachers?
RM: Yeah, I'm not aware of teachers not getting paid.
JB: But it's been hard to fund this free education policy, hasn't it?
RM: It is a difficult challenge, because at the time when we introduced the policy it was at a time when the economy was doing very, very well. Now we can't control the price of copper and oil and gas and gold. Obviously the economy has taken a hit, and it's recovering now. And I think over the next twelve months we'll get over that hump.
JB: And what would you say to people of PNG who are asking what are they going to get out of the country hosting APEC?
RM: For the country, there's been a lot of business coming through, through hotels, through the international airlines, that really helps. We are looking at bringing through some significant investment. In terms of new investment opportunities, we are also looking at announcing some very big investments leading up to or during APEC which will be big ticket items for our country in terms of growing the economy. So we are quite excited. we also believe that by big companies coming in to PNG that we'll be able to appreciate the opportunities. So many times you hear people making so many comments about our country. And I think it's better for investors to come themselves and see the country, see its people, see the leadership, and decide for themselves if that's the place they want to invest in. And I might add, if the Exxons and Totals of this world, and the global leaders in the oil and gas sector, are interested in investing in PNG, it must make a very strong statement for PNG as an investment destination.
JB: There's no doubt about the resources in PNG and leaders like yourselves have been trying to foster development for some years now, but it's not always smooth running is it? You must have been aware of the talk about the LNG Project this week, about the project not being as beneficial to PNG people as it was predicted at the outset, what do you think?
RM: Well, in all honesty a lot of people expected the LNG Project to bring in a windfall of revenue. But you must also understand, we borrowed money. The investors also borrowed. And they have to retire loans that they used to fund the project. At the moment, they've been going through that phase. While that's going on, the price obviously came right down, so that also impacted on cash flows and the profitability of the LNG business in Papua New Guinea. But the prices are going up now, and we're quite excited about the next few years."
