Gough Whitlam, the Australian Prime Minister who gave Papua New Guinea its independence in 1975, died this week. The ABC’s long-serving Papua New Guinea correspondent, Sean Dorney, reflects on Whitlam’s historic relationship with PNG and the road to independence.
Features
The O’Neill government is preparing to deliver its 2015 budget, against a backdrop of rising government debt and rising expenditure. Business Advantage PNG asks what business needs and what we might expect.
The Chairman of Papua New Guinea’s Independent Public Business Corporation (IPBC), Paul Nerau, has flagged a ‘tsunami’ of government-backed development projects worth billions of kina, including the relocation of Port Moresby’s port and gas-generated electricity.
The steady emergence of Papua New Guinea’s Barramundis national cricket side has led the sport’s managing body in the country to introduce professional player contracts—a major step in the development of the sport in PNG.
The successful completion of the PNG LNG project has turned the focus onto where new investment opportunities lie. Senior representatives from the IFC, Austrade and Nambawan Super got together at the recent Papua New Guinea Advantage Investment Summit to share their thoughts.
New Britain Palm Oil Limited and the West New Britain provincial government have held preliminary talks which could see electricity generated from the company’s waste products provided across the entire province.
Air Niugini and PNG Ports for partial sale: Papua New Guinea zeros in on its state-owned enterprises
First Air Niugini, then PNG Power … then PNG Ports and the National Airports Corporation? The Papua New Guinea government is embarking on a grand plan to reinvigorate state-owned enterprises. But privatisation is not the only option to ensure SOEs function as viable entities.
Foreign investment in the Fiji economy is expected to return, following the first democratic election since the 2006 coup. Tourism, infrastructure and natural resources are three sectors expected to benefit, but economists and business leaders say that will depend on political and policy stability, as Kevin McQuillan reports.
The Papua New Guinea Advantage Investment and Infrastructure Summit was held in Port Moresby this week. Over two days, delegates heard about Port Moresby becoming ‘the Dubai of the Pacific’, tax incentives in the 2015 Budget and how to develop relationships with Chinese business. Here are some highlights.
New Caledonia is a unique territory in the Pacific region. With the second highest per capita GDP in the region, it is a prosperous first-world economy that possesses a level of development and infrastructure that would be the envy of most Pacific island nations, as Andrew Wilkins reports.