The Ministry of International Trade and Investment will enter into a strategic partnership with the superannuation funds to raise capital for investment in Special Economic Zones and national transformational projects, including the planned acquisition of shares in Ramu Agri Industries.
This was discussed in a meeting this morning between the Minister for International Trade and Investment, Richard Maru, and the CEO of Nasfund and Chairman of the Pacific Island Investment Forum (PIIF), Rajeev Sharma, on the margins of PNG Investment Week in Sydney.
“My Ministry will partner the superannuation industry of PNG and the Pacific by entering into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with PIIF. The Marape-Rosso Government do not want only the foreign companies to benefit from tax incentives; we also want our Papua New Guinean companies to invest and when our superfunds invest, they are investing on behalf of thousands of our citizens so it is very important that we sign this MoU in January,” said Minister Maru.
Sharma said the MoU will be drafted and ready for signing in January next year to support the investment drive.
Plans to reform PNG’s capital market were also discussed during the meeting.
“We want to look at how we can provide tax incentives for companies right across the world to list on our stock market so more financial products will be offered on the market for our domestic investors. Our citizens are currently spectators in their own country. They are only getting 1.5 percent interest by investing in the commercial banks when they could be earning 10 to 15 percent in return of investment from investing in a stock market," said Minister Maru.
"We also want to rebrand, rename and list the Pacific Balanced Fund to reflect PNG ownership for massive funding drive in the new year. We will host a Capital Market Summit in PNG next year where we will discuss this and also learn from other countries like India where everybody is involved buying and selling on the stock market,” he added.
