Minister for Information and Communications Technology, Timothy Masiu returned to the country last week, pleased with the outcome of his two-week ministerial trip to Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Minister Masiu has acted quickly to urge his ministerial colleagues to think outside the box and do more with less by tripling efforts to seek out trade and investment opportunities that secures transformational benefits for the country.
The Minister said he was invited by Papua New Guinea’s Foreign Ministry to support the work of the government and the PNG pavilion at the World Expo 2020 Dubai UAE.
Before taking a nine-person team from the Ministry and Department overseas, Minister Masiu said he shared the typical PNG hunting analogy in Tok Pisin with his team members.
“Yumi noken go raun nating nating. Yumi noken kam bek han nating. Nogut ol hauslain hangere.” (We must go there to work, and not return empty handed. Our people must benefit.)
The Minister said this analogy set the tone for his team’s preparation and that meant getting them to prepare six months in advance. This included liaising with PNG Department of Foreign Affairs, PNG foreign missions in the United Kingdom and Belgium, multinational technology companies, key development partners, to legal drafting, and seeking clearance from the State Solicitor.
Masiu said he required from his team members to visit all NEC policy decisions granted under his term as Minister, to determine who they should meet in Dubai and for what reasons.
The Minister met with UAE Foreign Minister, various interested investors, and potential trade partners. He also visited the pavilions for a few countries including Tuvalu, Solomon Islands, Fiji, UAE, Germany, Israel, Australia, and Saudi Arabia.
Team members from the PNG ICT Department were also kept busy, meeting with potential partners.
“To support the delivery of the Marape-Basil government’s digital government agenda, my departmental head Steven Matainaho signed memoranda of understanding with the Romanian ICT Clusters (Cluj), and Estonian company Cybernetica. Secretary Matainaho also formalized a mutual non-disclosure agreement with Cisco Systems,” said Minister Masiu.
Minister Masiu has a policy submission that he will now take to Cabinet to endorse memoranda of understanding on ICT that he has proposed to be signed between PNG and bilateral partners Israel and the UAE.
“I think we have not returned home empty-handed. Right now, my Ministry and Department have got to convert the memoranda of understanding and the agreement we signed into tangible outputs that are consistent with the government’s digital transformation policy so that our people can benefit now and into the future.”