Western Highlands Province will be the feed and chicken capital of Papua New Guinea if all goes well, says Minister of International Trade & Investment, Richard Maru.
He made this announcement when visiting the Baiyer Station in Mul-Baiyer District with the Japan Development Institute (JDI) Expert Team, this week.
He said the district has been identified as one of the 18 potential Special Economic Zone (SEZ) locations in the country.
“Mul-Baiyer was added to the list of potential SEZ locations in the country because it has two large stretches of undeveloped state land- Baiyer Valley with 6, 000 hectares and Ruti Valley with 44, 000 hectares; a total of 50, 000 hectares of state land. If there was no state land then we would not be here,” Minister Maru said.
The leaders from the district did a customary act by presenting a little plastic of soil to Minister Maru to show that they were returning the land to the state to be developed.
“I have the highest respect for the Mul-Baiyer people because you never went and touched the state land; you have been waiting for the state to come and develop it and that makes you different from other parts of the country. That is the reason why the government is giving priority to you,” said Minister Maru.
He said that Mul-Baiyer was an important asset to the country because of its land resource and it had a huge potential to develop large-scale commercial agriculture projects.
“PNG is importing wheat and feed from Australia when we can grow them here in Mul-Baiyer where they are already being grown in small scale.”
The government has identified the Baiyer and the Ruti valleys to do a trial on growing wheat, sorghum and maze for commercial development of the feed industry.
“If the Mul-Baiyer DDA and the Western Highlands Provincial Government agrees then we can jointly fund the trial and have a feasibility study done to assess the viability of having a feed industry in the district,” said Minister Maru.