Agriculture Minister says annual investment in agriculture is just K150 million a year, call for mining sector-style tax incentives for agriculture, and Leaders’ summit critically important, says O’Neill. Your weekly digest of the latest business news.

Agriculture Minister Tommy Tomscoll says PNG has to move away from depending too much on oil and gas resources, admitting the agricultural sector has dwindled in the past few decades despite its huge potential. He told the 2016 Agricultural Leaders Summit that agriculture contributes 27 per cent towards Gross Domestic Product (GDP), or just over K2.5 billion. He said annual investment was just K150 million, however.

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Innovative Agro’s Ilan Weiss.

Tax and business incentives are needed if the government is serious about attracting more investment into the agriculture sector, says the CEO of Innovative Agro Industry, Ilan Weiss. He added that similar incentives to those for the mining sector could be extended to agriculture.

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Prime Minister Peter O’Neill says this week’s fourth Leaders’ Summit is critically important in view of the nation’s current financial situation. He will also launch the long awaited SME policy and master plan, which aims to create an additional two million jobs and 500,000 businesses by the year 2030 and to increase PNG ownership of businesses from the current 10 per cent to 70 per cent.

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Preliminary figures show PNG’s population now exceeds seven million, and could be as high as 10 million, according to National Statistician Roko Koloma.

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PNG’s long-running drought has hit the food bowl of the Highlands and is affecting up to two million people, according to the PNG National Disaster Centre.

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Locals cross over the flood-damaged Bena Bridge. Credit: The National

The Highlands Highway has been temporarily closed, after the Bena Bridge, near Goroka, was washed away by continuous, heavy rain. In Madang Province, several bridges were also washed away. Oro Provincial gGovernment needs several million kina to repair and replace bridges that were destroyed during last week’s flash floods.

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PNG DataCo is eyeing commercial ventures to raise capital to connect the northern and southern national transmission links, says Managing Director Paul Komboi. It is aiming to link Port Moresby, Madang and Lae via the Highlands provinces by the end of 2016.

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LCCI President, Alan McLay. Credit: The Loop

Newcrest Mining reports a new operating strategy will reduce the cost of extending the life of the Lihir gold mine by more than US$1 billion to US$215 million.

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The Lae Chamber of Commerce has praised the quality of Japan’s work in improving the Lae urbanisation plan and power transmission on the Ramu power grid. Chamber president Alan McLay says the Japanese Government’s K200 million of aid to PNG Power Limited was vital to the project.

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Brisbane-based Highlands Pacific has received the second and final US$5 million payment from mining giant Anglo American for the latter’s acquisition of its initial interest in the Star Mountains copper-gold project in Western Province.

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Papua LNG operator Total has reported a 20 per cent increase in annual net profit to US$5.1 billion (K15.5 billion), compared with US$4.2 billion (K12.8 billion) a year earlier.

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Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s has taken Rio Tinto off CreditWatch negative after Rio announced plans to slash its dividend payouts to shareholders. Rio, which owns Bougainville Copper Limited, last week unveiled a US$866 million (K2.63 billion) full-year loss.

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The Chief Executive of the Port Moresby Chamber of Commerce, David Conn, has welcomed the Police Commissioner’s commitment to install security cameras around Port Moresby to combat crime.

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The new Prime Minister of Vanuatu, Charlot Salwai, says fixing the Port Vila airport runway is one of the priorities in his first 100 days in office.

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A new offer from the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) to the United States on tuna fishing will still leave the region out of pocket, says the Director General, James Movick. The US’s reneging has cost the Pacific nations more than US$68 million and Movick says he hopes a new agreement, reached under duress, will mean that US boats will be back in the water soon.