By Meleasie Goviro – EM TV News, Port Moresby
Papua New Guinea continues to make headway in its global representation.
National Planning Minister, Charles Abel, recently participated in the World Economic Forum (WEF), a 40 year old organisation established to improve partnerships between the private and the public sector.
He spoke in a news conference today on PNG’s partnership with ASEAN countries.
The forum, he said, facilitated side discussions on three main topics for the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) region; sustainable development and sustainable growth, its energy outlook and finance blending options for ASEAN and its financial partners.
Paramount to achieving any of these goals the MP said was the need for ASEAN countries to first foster inclusive economic growth to boost countries like PNGs onto the same platform as those now into the fourth industrial revolution.
“Countries like PNG are to a large degree still stuck in the first industrial revolution or indeed the second. And we wanted to impress upon them that, if they wanted to talk about inclusive growth, countries like Papua New Guinea who contribute much of our natural resources so they can enjoy the fourth industrial revolution and their standards of living want to be include in economic development in a meaningful way.”
In relation to the WEF, he said PNG has also been invited as one of a thousand global champions in terms of sustainable development to WEFs next meeting in China this year.
Furthermore, PNG has recently applied to become a member of the ASEAN group of companies to which it is now merely an observer.
As one of the fastest developing regions in the world, Abel believed this partnership with the ASEAN was essential for PNGs economic development.
The MP said he was proud of PNGs growing participation in global events like the ASEAN WEF and the ACP Summit and look forward to see more exposure for PNG at that level.
