Investment interest in PNG is high : O'neill

PNG PM Peter O'neill. Getty Images

PRIME Minister Peter O’Neill yesterday said business confidence in PNG as an attractive investment destination was very high.

He said this after meeting with a number of business leaders during the week and after flying to Lae last week to officiate at the opening of a new modern processing plant for Prima Smallgoods.

O’Neill will leave for Bali, Indonesia, tomorrow for the APEC meeting.

He will meet and hold talks with leaders of some APEC member countries, where he will continue to promote PNG, its growing economy and the opportunities that are on offer.

“We have a very stable political environment now. With our policies being implemented now, the government is directly addressing issues that drive costs of doing business in PNG up, like poor roads and poor law and order situation.

“Companies are now happy to expand their businesses, like Prima Smallgoods has done, and that creates more employment and other spinoff business opportunities for our people,” he said.

O’Neill said he was pleased that businesses and investors understood that Ok Tedi was a unique case and the decision to take control of the mine was one off.

O’Neill said this after international ratings agency Standard and Poors made public their view on Ok Tedi.

“Ok Tedi appears to be a one-off, isolated case in some respects,” Craig Michaels, Standard and  Poor’s sovereign credit analyst for PNG, said in an assessment posted on its website.

“But we’d expect that mining companies are watching closely. The decision to remove BHP Billiton’s immunity from prosecution for environmental damage, in particular, may have surprised miners a bit.

“The key question for us is whether this raises miners’ perception of sovereign risk in PNG, and whether this has a material effect on future mining investment. If that happened, it would be quite damaging for PNG’s economy,” Michaels said.

Commenting on that, the O’Neill said Ok Tedi was a unique case and the decision by parliament was one off to correct a bad decision of the parliament in 2001.

The National/ PNG Today