O'NEILL : PNG MAJOR PLAYER IN THE PACIFIC

PAPUA New Guinea will continue to be the major trade investor apart from being a donor agency and main regional player assisting smaller Pacific nations, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill said in Palau yesterday.

Mr O’Neill met with various leaders of the Pacific, talking about the bilateral relations and trade investments with Niue, Samoa, Vanuatu, Cook Islands and Solomon Islands.

PNG has huge investments in Solomon Islands, Fiji, Vanuatu and is looking at trade investments in Palau, Samoa and Niue.

And yesterday Mr O’Neill said PNG has an obligation to take the lead in assisting all these Pacific nations through trade and being a major donor player and making sure the PNG Government continues to grow business and bilateral relations with these countries.

"In the series of these meetings we have discussed our trade investments in those countries and we talked about PNG’s on-going assistance, specifically the program that we are rolling out for the Pacific Island Nations," Mr O’Neill said.

"Papua New Guinea has got an obligation to do that, we need to be taking the lead role in ensuring that these things happen and through our discussions with many of our leaders of the region, throughout the Pacific region, we are encouraging that our businesses continue to have access to their markets so that they can invest, employ more people that will give them more income to many of those nations and their people and I think that way it will continue to change their living standards for their respective communities.

"It is important that we continue to play a role that will also ensure that we take many of our Pacific Island communities with us when we prosper in our own country.

"So I think this forum is a very successful forum for Papua New Guinea because it continues to enhance our presence in the region and gives us opportunity to increase trade and investment for our private sector and our businessmen and women in those countries."

PNG Today / Post Courier