MSME Council

Highlighting the current system's bias towards foreign investors and its burden on local citizens, MSME founder James Gore emphasizes the urgent need for reform to stimulate local entrepreneurship and innovation.

The current tax structure in Papua New Guinea is under scrutiny for its disproportionate advantages to foreign investors at the expense of local businesses and individuals.

The event seamlessly blended a vibrant mini-market featuring local micro-enterprises with an exclusive cocktail networking session, uniting entrepreneurs for an evening of business synergy and celebration.

Local micro enterprises showcased their diverse and innovative products, transforming the venue into a dynamic mini-market where craftsmanship took center stage. The mini-market highlighted the entrepreneurial spirit and creativity within the local MSME community, from handmade crafts to live painting.

From 2019, Lavagirl creative director, Annette Sete, gained much publicity with a copyright infringement case against Tropicana Ltd for the alleged theft of intellectual property of Lavagirl’s Tabu Wheel design. They were recently able to get this case through to trial stage.

MSME Council President, Desmond Yaninen, said that because of a lack of awareness surrounding copyright and protection of intellectual property, many MSMEs are prone to exploitation by larger organisations and companies.

She will manage all projects, programmes, agreements, and events of the MSMEC and coordinate its membership engagement nationwide.

Soweni is supported by the National Council and Regional Leaders for Southern, NGI, Momase and the Highlands.  

The MSME Council has over a thousand registered members nationwide and poised to double in size in 2022.

Ms Soweni’s roles also includes advocacy, capacity building, marketing, managing member database, engagements and administration.

When presenting at the National ICT Summit, he spoke about what MSME was about and what it does to help engage entrepreneurs in upskilling businesses, while being contributing factors to the ever-growing economy.

Mr Yaninen said the mission of the MSME is to advocate for the voice of the small business sectors, helping to establish entrepreneurs and small businesses, grow and prosper and finally helping to connect members to new markets and provide access to markets.