THE first forum between the business communities of Papua New Guinea and China in October is expected to attract more than 1,000 participants, according to International Trade and Investment Minister Richard Maru.
“It will be a government-to-government arrangement if we are going to launch out into China in the biggest way ever,” he said.
“Recently, we signed bilateral security agreements, defence cooperation agreements with Australia and the US.
“And they are our partners in defence and security.
“(But when it comes to) economic prosperity, China is going to be our number one priority this year.
“We are going to go all out.
“They (Chinese companies) want to buy every fish we produce, every coffee we produce every gas we produce.
“Future gas projects will be sold to China. So the first big move is to see China as our main trading partner, and we want to sign a comprehensive economic partnership agreement with China as soon as possible.
“I know it took Australia 15 years of negotiation and New Zealand 15 years.
“We must do it maturely, that we need an agreement.”
Maru added that the International Trade and Investment Department would ensure that the State Solicitor clears the agreement for the new 300-metric-tonne canning plant by next week, working through any required approvals so the project can proceed without further delay.
He said that Treasury would provide the Government’s 50 per cent equity contribution (about K18 million) for the new canning plant within the next two weeks so that the state agreement could be signed and the project to move forward.
