Cabinet to ban SABLs, Telikom prepares for transition to becoming a retailer, and a possible eight-year delay in upgrading Lae airport. Your weekly digest of the latest business news.

Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has described Special Agricultural Business Leases (SABLs) as ‘a scam’ and the National Executive Council will outlaw them at its next meeting.

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Telikom PNG’s Mahesh Patel

Telikom PNG has bought internet service provider, Datec PNG Ltd., as it embarks on restructuring its communications business towards retail. Chairman Mahesh Patel says it follows the transfer of the wholesale business Dataco Ltd., a state-owned enterprise.

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The President of the Lae Chamber of Commerce, Alan McLay says he’s taken aback by revelations funding to upgrade Lae’s Nadzab airport could take eight years. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is carrying out a feasibility study to upgrade the airport.

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Trade Minister, Richard Maru, has called on China to open up its markets to PNG’s non-mining sector, describing the trade imbalance as ‘huge’. He says Chinese products are flooding the PNG market, and Chinese companies are securing all the major government supply contracts.

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Credit growth in PNG last year was 15%, according to the latest ANZ Bank Pacific Quarterly report. Business services, manufacturing, and transport and communication drove growth. But mining
 and quarrying, construction, and utility loans declined.

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The government has partnered with Bank of South Pacific to make K200 million available for first home owners. A total of K400 million will be provided by the government over a five-year period at a fixed interest rate of 4%, with repayment terms up to 40 years available.

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Indonesia will introduce a direct flight service from Jayapura to Papua New Guinea towards the end of 2014, while the Philippines is considering a twice-weekly flight. Trade Minister Maru says the flights from Indonesia may go to Wewak in East Sepik Province.

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A fall in the value of the kina has seen sugar imports fall and local sales increase, according to New Britain Palm Oil Ltd Chief Executive Officer Nick Thompson. Local sales account for 93% of all sales. Thompson has also announced a 153% increase in first-quarter gross profits, which rose to US$32.4 million (K92 million).

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The signing of a Benefit Sharing Agreement for the Stanley gas condensate project in Western Province has been deferred indefinitely, after landowners said they were unhappy with some of the government’s proposals.

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UBS analyst Jo Battershill says Newcrest Mining needs to spend another A$1.3 billion developing the company’s Lihir mine in PNG. Newcrest’s outgoing CEO Greg Robinson said at the opening of theCadia East mine in NSW last week that it would underpin the company’s future for decades.

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Gold miner St Barbara says there is no change to its existing debt arrangements, after Moody’s downgraded its rating of St Barbara to Caa1 from B3, with a negative outlook. The downgrade reflects underperformance at the Simberi mine in PNG, where cash costs exceed gold prices.

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ABG President John Momis

Bougainville’s President, John Momis, says Rio Tinto cannot assume it will operate Panguna mine, if it reopens. But, he says, landowners ‘talk of preferring the devil they know and not a new devil’.

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The ANZ Bank has changed some of its Pacific economic forecasts in its Quarterly review. Fiji was upgraded, while Solomon’s is lower following its flooding disaster. Timor Leste’s growth will likely be slightly lower too. Inflation is forecast to be higher in PNG and Solomons, but lower in Timor Leste.

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Bank of South Pacific Group chairman, Kostas Constantinou, has announced a net profit after tax of K436.8m (US$ 154 million), an increase of K29 million (US$10 million) on its 2012 result. BSP has also received the ‘2013 Best Private Sector Employer Award’ from the Papua New Guinea Human Resource Institute.

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Delegates from Kiribati, Tuvalu and Papua New Guinea are in Canberra, Australia, urging politicians to cut carbon emissions and to help them tackle climate change in their countries.

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Two-thirds of the Pacific Islands communities could run out of fish to feed their populations within 15 years, according to Dr Quentin Hanich at the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security.

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The Kokoda Memorial Credit: kirklandphotos.com

A team of international researchers is on a mission to gather first-hand accounts of Papua New Guineans’ wartime experience along the Kokoda Track. The project will draw on the expertise of historians and locals to capture an oral history, recording interviews and stories to be curated by the PNG National Museum and Art Gallery.