The Papua New Guinea Government plans to sell its 50% in Air Niugini, PNG Power calls for overseas power investors and tuna industry threatened. Your weekly digest of the week’s business news.

The  government is planning to sell its 50% stake in Air Niugini to the private sector to raise K500 million for two more Boeing 787 Dreamliners. Prime Minister Peter O’Neill says the government is also looking at Telikom and PNG Power, saying ‘we will slowly introduce them to the private sector’.

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PNG Power’s CEO, John Tangit, wants overseas independent power producers to invest in PNG, to help boost power supplies. He says the forced decrease in tariffs is forcing PPL to commercialise its operations.

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Maurice Brownjohn, Commercial Manager of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement, in the Marshall Islands, says the crisis in the Pacific domestic longline tuna industry can’t be solved without a serious, region-wide effort by governments. He says recent indications that domestic fishing is collapsing in the island nations are based on the increasing presence of foreign fishing boats, mainly from China.

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Singapore-based Tri Marine International says it wants American Samoa to be the tuna hub of the Pacific. The company, which is building a new cannery in Pago Pago, has teamed up with the European tuna company, Bolton Group, to fund expansion plans.

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PNG and Indonesia have agreed to regulate the exchange mechanism between the rupiah and the kina in their border areas. Bank Indonesia’s (BI) deputy governor, Ronald Waas, says the agreement is designed to boost trade in the area, by increasing money exchangers.

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Ian Gowrie-Smith, London-based Australian businessman and ex-Chairman of PNG exploration company Rift Oil (which was sold to Talisman Energy in 2009), says investors wanting to buy one or more of the 21 Conflict Islands in Milne Bay must have an interest in the environment and conservation, as well as providing jobs. He says he wants to maintain the islands’ position as one of the true unspoiled treasures of the Pacific. He says local and national politicians don’t have a problem with the plans.

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The president of the Autonomous Bougainville Government says funding disputes with the national government were resolved during last week’s historic prime ministerial visit. John Momis says Peter O’Neill has promised to pay arrears estimated at US$70 million (K177 million) in the development and restoration fund attached to the Peace Agreement. O’Neill has also promised to officially re-open Bougainville’s defunct Aropa Airport in three months’ time.

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Agriculture Minister, Tommy Tomscoll, has announced that the National Government will subsidise copra prices to provide incentives for farmers. He made the announcement at the opening of a copra processing mill in Buka on Bougainville, run by Pristine 101 Ltd.

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Three more fires at business buildings in Lae have prompted Morobe Governor, Kelly Naru, to join the call for more and better resources. Lae has only one fire station. The Lae Chamber of Commerce has previously called for improved fire fighting resources.

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InterOil will close its Cairns office by the end of the year and relocate staff to PNG as the company finalises its plans to develop a multi-billion dollar LNG project with France’s Total S.A.

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Esso Highlands Limited, the operator of the PNG LNG project, has changed its company name to ExxonMobil PNG Limited, according to company spokeswoman Rebecca Arnold.

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China’s outgoing Ambassador to PNG, Qiu Bohua, says China will buy  two million tonnes of LNG products annually beginning this year for the next 20 years. He estimates China’s current investments in PNG are worth US$2 billion (K5.1 billion).

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Thai-based research and development company Pulp Green Tech Holding may have found a  use for the 300 million tonnes of ’empty fruit bunch’ palm oil waste thrown away each year. It says it has successfully produced a high-grade paper pulp from the waste.

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The extent of corruption in Europe is ‘breathtaking’ and it costs the EU economy at least 120 billion euros (K411 billion) annually, the European Commission says. It’s the first survey about the extent of corruption within the EU that the Commission has carried out.