Papua New Guinea (PNG) will maintain its position for the last 10 years to not be part of PACER Plus.
Minister for International Trade and Investment, Richard Maru emphasized in his first meeting with the new Australian High Commissioner to PNG, His Excellency John Feakes.
Minister Maru said, “I want to make it very clear to the Australian Government that PNG is not interested in the PACER Plus because Australia hardly buys from PNG with trade skewed in Australia’s favour for decades.”
Maru highlighted PNG’s exports to Australia in 2022 stood at AU$1.6 billion (K3.7 billion) with over 98 percent being gold and other precious metals, whilst PNG imports from Australia stood at AU$95.9 million (K22 billion).
“As far as we are concerned, it is pointless to negotiate a PACER Plus Agreement. We would rather go into a new comprehensive economic trade and investment bilateral partnership with Australia which also captures other areas of benefits to PNG given such a vast trade imbalance, like employment of skilled Papua New Guineans, investments in the non-extractive sector, and other benefits that we can get from this partnership apart from the trading of goods.”
Minister Maru went on to say, “The PNG-Australia Bilateral Trade Assessment is a priority activity for us with the final report to be released soon by the Centre of International Economics. We will also be officially announcing our new Honorary Trade Commissioner to Australia at the end of this month in Brisbane. We want to find potential Australian investors through our Honorary Trade Commission to come and invest in our non-extractive sectors like forestry, fisheries, agriculture, and the tourism sector etc.”
Minister Maru further emphasized the importance of Australia’s trade relationship with PNG.
“Australia is PNG’s largest trade partner with bilateral trade of over AU$6 billion (K13 billion) in 2022 and is a major investor in PNG with investment valued at over AU$24.8 billion (K57 billion) in 2022. We are very grateful for this,” said Minister Maru.