Senior Finance Officials’ Meeting a success

The APEC Senior Finance Officials’ Meeting in Madang has been hailed a success, compared to other meetings in the country.

The two-day meeting, which commenced on Thursday June 7, discussed the policy priority on promoting inclusive growth through structural reform.

A lot of discussions were focused on advancing infrastructure development financing, inclusive growth and tax incorporation.

On the first day, the Senior Finance Officials talked about global and regional economic and financial outlook, including key issues and risks for APEC economies and appropriate policy responses.

The other discussions for the day were on advancing financial inclusion, implementing the Cebu action plan and disaster risk finance and insurance.

On day two of the meeting, the leaders discussed accelerating infrastructure development and financing, fostering international tax cooperation and transparency.

SFOM Chair Andrew Oaeke said the leaders also deliberated on the four main priority areas of APEC in terms of advancing infrastructure, financing and development and accelerating financial inclusion.

He added that for PNG, infrastructure is very important as well as inclusiveness.

“Inclusiveness is very important because it tries to reach out to all Papua New Guineans, especially those in rural areas.”

Oaeke added that the key component of the discussion was financial literacy.

“Getting our people to understand financial literacy so that both the businesses and SMEs, especially individuals to access financial services which could help them progress in their operations.”

Author: 
Freddy Mou