Papua New Guinea manufacturer Pacific Foam is celebrating its 40th year of operation in the country. Business Advantage PNG talks to Chairman Nihal Shah about the company’s history and its vision for the future.
Industry sectors
While tourism is the mainstay of the Fiji economy, policymakers want to broaden the country’s income sources. Fiji’s Consul-General and Trade Commissioner to Australia, Zarak Khan says opportunities lie with business services, agriculture, forestry, textiles and renewables.
Conducting stevedoring transactions in US dollars instead of kina is an opportunity to get in much-needed foreign exchange, according to Ted Muttiah, Director, Asia Pacific, for ICTSI South Pacific. He tells Business Advantage PNG the company, which has been appointed to manage new ports at Motukea and Lae, is aiming high.
A report on the state of the Papua New Guinea economy by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says the Government has taken some ‘bold steps’ in its economic management. But it contends that the challenges are considerable and would be best managed with an ‘active’ approach to macroeconomic management.
The commercial potential of PNG’s galip nut could soon be realised. Helen Wallace, Project Leader at the Transformative Agriculture and Enterprise Development program tells Business Advantage PNG that the strong growth in the nut industry indicates it is the right time to develop the sector.
The CEO of Mainland Holdings wants a national register of landowners willing to lease their land or grow crops on their property. David Alcock has also outlined his company’s plans to boost feedstock for poultry and pigs, to reduce costs and save foreign exchang
Could Papua New Guinea Government bonds and treasury bills soon be purchased anywhere in the world with the click of a button? A new working group aims to look at ways to modernise the way the country raises money.
The Managing Director of PanAust, Fred Hess, has announced a rethink on the company’s proposed Frieda River mine project. ‘It is no longer just a mining project’—it is a development project for the Sandaun and Sepik provinces, he told the Papua New Guinea Mining and Petroleum Conference in Port Moresby.
The next decade could be a ‘golden’ one for the mining sector, believes Roger Gunson, Executive Manager, Regulatory Operations at the Mineral Resources Authority. But he has called for changes to Papua New Guinea’s government policy to better protect mining tenements.
Papua New Guinea’s cocoa industry could be back to its 1970s levels if it had a strong cocoa grower-based Cocoa Board, more farmer training and increased investment. That is what John Nightingale, Managing Director of Agmark, told the country’s first-ever agricultural summit, held in Port Moresby last month.