The Australia/New Zealand representative for PNG’s Tourism Promotion Authority predicts strong growth in domestic tourism, anticipating a drop in travel costs and increased marketing of PNG’s natural scenic spots. Sonja Heydemann reports.
Industry sectors
Lae is set to become the South Pacific’s main fish processing centre, with the opening of one massive new cannery this week, the commencement of construction for another, with more on the drawing board.
From a Papua New Guinea perspective, the most striking thing about attending Australia’s major annual media and marketing conference last week was the irrelevance of so much of the content, writes Robert Hamilton-Jones.
Newcrest Mining has revealed it is aiming to ‘simplify’ operations at the Lihir and Hidden Valley gold mines in Papua New Guinea, after writing down the value of its mines in PNG, Australia and Africa by AUD$6 billion (K12.6 billion).
Papua New Guinea Sustainable Development Program Ltd appears to be resigned to losing its main asset, the Ok Tedi mine, to the PNG Government. What are the implications if the takeover goes ahead?
Papua New Guinea’s Government has an ambitious target of creating 500,000 locally-owned businesses over the next 20 years. The National Development Bank is key to its plans, as Managing Director Moses Liu explains.
State utility PNG Power has been authorised to start negotiations with Hong Kong-based liquefied gas and power company, Energy World Corporation, to build a new 30MW-to-80MW diesel and gas-fuelled power plant in Port Moresby.
Power outages may become a distant memory, with Papua New Guinea’s power generation capacity set to double in coming years, largely due to increased investment from the private sector.
Papua New Guinea’s much-anticipated second gas project could turn out to be an extension of its first, as ExxonMobil commences exclusive negotiations with InterOil and Pacific LNG.
Japanese investment in Papua New Guinea’s gas resources has increased, with Japan’s second largest gas company buying a 40% stake in Australia’s Horizon Oil, which has an interest in several PNG petroleum leases.