The Australian Foreign Affairs Minister, Julie Bishop, has arrived in Kavieng along with the PNG Foreign Affairs Minister Rimbink Pato.
This is the second day of a three-day official bilateral visit to PNG.
The official visit to Kavieng will include discussions on bilateral trade and investment opportunities for the province.
The Australia Minister, who arrived in Port Moresby yesterday, had a meeting with Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and Pato and discussed the status of the First Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM1), stating it was successful.
Bishop says the status of PNG hosting the APEC summit in November this year is very important for the region.
She was updated on the status of the first meetings and Australia will continue to provide support to PNG to ensure the summit is successful in November.
"This is important not just for PNG but also for our region to show that we can host a world leaders’ conference of this size and that opportunities APEC bring, more trade and investments.”
The support will also include cyber security support as well as working very closely with the defence and security side of things.
The Australian minister said she is sure other countries are looking into other pathways as well come the summit.
Her visit yesterday ended at the APEC Haus inspections, but prior to that, both foreign ministers visited the Air Transport Wing where the Australian and PNG Defence Force were coordinating relief supplies via the Hercules aircraft.
(From left: PNG Foreign Affairs Minister Rimbink Pato, New Ireland Governor Sir Julius Chan and Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop in front of the recently-opened Official Government Residence Kavieng)