Tuna agreement ‘disappointing’, call for better rural roads funding, new nursery to raise borer-resistant cocoa.  Your quick digest of the week’s business news.

Pacific fishing officials are disappointed at a ‘weak’ conservation plan aimed preventing overfishing in the region. The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) meeting in Cairns last week agreed to reduce the longline bigeye tuna catch by 10-30 percent for foreign fishing nations. Limits on purse seine fishing will be considered next year.

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Papua New Guinea MP, Tobias Kulang, says the government needs to put more money into rural roading where far greater economic gains could be achieved. Seven major roading projects within the capital are either underway or are in the planning stages as part of a US$315 million improvement programme. Kulang, says it doesn’t make sense to allocate such large sums to the city, given about 85 percent of the population lives in rural areas.

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A new cocoa nursery in Yangoru-Saussia, East Sepik is expected to produce six million cocoa pod borer-resistant seedlings for farmers. District officials have given the PNG cocoa board in Wewak K500,000 to start work on the nursery and development programme at Miamboru village. The move is part of the battle to save the cocoa industry from total devastation because of the borer.

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Australia’s rice growers are facing the threatened loss of their biggest overseas market, in Papua New Guinea-worth about AUD$80 million a year. The Australian Government will be quizzing PNG’s ministers at the annual Joint Ministerial Forum, in Canberra this week, about the prospect of Indonesia supplanting Australia as the country’s core rice supplier.

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Papua New Guineans will receive free primary healthcare when the Government’s new policy comes into effect on 24 Feb, 2014. Health Minister Michael Malabag has allocated K20 million [US$7.7 million] each year for the next four years towards the policy.

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The Asian Development Bank predicts increasing fiscal pressures throughout the Pacific economies in 2014. AS well as PNG’s Budget deficit, it notes weak global growth is causing lower commodity prices; rising debt levels in Samoa in its post-cyclone recovery spending in Samoa, more government spending in Fiji and a declining fiscal surplus in Timor-Leste.

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 The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is now PNG’s second largest development partner with a portfolio of US$1.1 billion, Noriko Ogawa, deputy director general of ADB’s Pacific department told a forum in Port Moresby last week. He said the ADB disbursed US$152.3 million on projects in 2013, up from US$91.7 million in 2012.

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PNG Mining Minister Byron Chan says the government is overhauling the country’s mining laws and policies. He told last week’s PNG Mining Seminar that the move would reshape Papua New Guinea’s mining sector for the better. He expects parliament to pass the changes next year.

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Australian Federal Police (AFP) and PNG’s anti-corruption body, Taskforce Sweep, will exchange information to help track down people who may be investing in Australia to dispose of corruptly-gained money.

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Meanwhile, Fiji’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) is investigating 24 cases under a new ‘unexplained wealth’ law. Under the law, respondents risk losing everything if they can not convince a court that their property was accumulated legitimately.

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PM Peter O’Neill has paid tribute to the late Nelson Mandela, saying the Government and people of PNG will always admire his leadership, his courage under enormous pressure and the wonderful inspiration he has provided for so many, for so long. And Mr Mandela was a contemporary icon who inspired Pacific people, according to Dr Tara Kabutaulaka from the University of Hawaii.