Pato stresses on resource protection

Papua New Guinea has one-third of the world's tuna, ‘the fish that feeds the world’.

Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Rimbink Pato, told the leaders at the World Trade Organisation ministerial meeting in Buenos Aires that PNG cannot protect these resources by themselves.

“We need multilateral agreements, and we also need bilateral agreements, and – like other developing island states – we need support to integrate our economy in the world economy.”

Pato said representatives at the meeting were trustees of humanity whose duty was to forge rules for multilateral agreements to assist the prosperity and well-being of the planet.

“Free trade is a key component of this,” Pato said.

“Naturally, all of us also have special responsibility for our own countries. In that respect, we can relate to the duty as expressed by the United States, but that responsibility also has global aspects to it.

“We also have the third largest rainforest in the world after Brazil and the Congo and we feel great responsibility as guardians, as stewards of this treasury of humanity.

“We are vitally interested in seeing the achievement of multilateral agreements that will eliminate illegal fishing, and that includes the abolition of subsidies to fishing industries by large economies. We also want a level playing field for agriculture with appropriate flexibilities.

“Many individual agreements – all within the context of a rules based international order – are also crucial to help us protect the oceans and the forests – and to develop sustainable economies.”

Pato said as the host of APEC 2018, Papua New Guinea will energetically encourage the rules-based multilateral order as well as bilateral agreements in harmony with those rules.

Author: 
Freddy Mou