The Papua New Guinea-Australia bilateral relations must advance to another level and be anchored on trade and investment relations, says Minister for International Trade and Investment, Richard Maru.
He stated this during a bilateral meeting with Australian counterpart Trade Minister, Don Farrell in Australia at the margins of the PNG-Australia Ministerial Forum recently.
The 29th PNG-Australia Ministerial Forum was convened on the back of the historic visit by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to PNG.
“For the last 47 years, the current status quo has been in favour of Australia. PNG’s exports to Australia are mainly gold and other precious metals which comprise over 98 percent of total exports. This means less than 2 percent are from the non-extractive sector and is valued at K50 million per annum.
“Australia’s total exports to PNG is estimated over K500 million, which translates to a ratio 1:10. A very huge trade imbalance,” said Maru.
He said Papua New Guinea would like to see a win-win whereby PNG can also export its goods and services into the Australian market.
“The current status quo is heavily skewed in Australia’s favour. Without taking actions to shrink this huge trade deficit with Australia.
“PNG is losing thousands of job opportunities and much income especially for our villagers, farmers and our tax revenue. This is the reason why PNG withdrew from the PACER Plus trade negotiations that where not addressing the very issues that continued to see PNG locked of exporting its competitive products and services to Australia.
“Without attending to these issues, the current PNG-Australia bilateral trade assessment study will be another a waste of time,” he said.