Credit Corporation shareholders decide not to sell up to BSP, while Papua New Guinea business visa fees rise sharply and Ok Tedi landowners threaten to close the mine in the latest dispute over the government’s takeover.

Shareholders of finance company, Credit Corporation Ltd, have reject a takeover offer by Bank of South Pacific Limited. Credit Corp’s Chairman Garth McIlwain said shareholders believed the finance company was doing well and there was no need to sell the leasing and finance business of Credit Corp. 
BSP board chairman Kostas Constantinou says BSP will now look to other strategic initiatives to promote the growth and development of the bank.

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The Governor of the Bank of Papua New Guinea says the central bank and commercial banks have stabilised the weakening value of the kina. Governor Loi Bakani told a media conference the kina had been weakening against foreign currencies since July and was hurting some industries and people on fixed incomes. Bakani said measures taken over the past two weeks have seen the kina stabilise at US$0.4140.

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The cost of one-year multiple entry business visa fees into Papua New Guinea has doubled. The new gazetted rate is K1000 (AUD$398).

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Landowners around Papua New Guinea’s giant Ok Tedi mine are threatening to close its operations this week, unless the government hands over the 63.4% of the mine’s shares seized from PNGSDP. Landowner spokesman Richard Zumoi said they also wanted the government to pay them the AUD$363  million (K910 million) in dividends for last year, which Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has instructed the new Ok Tedi Mining Limited board not to declare.

The government’s halt of PNGSDP’s access to mine dividends has led it to announce that ‘it is no longer able to continue funding social and economic development projects,’ many of which are already operating.

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Gold mining contributes a higher proportion of economic activity in Papua New Guinea than it does in any other major mining country in the world, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers report entitled: ‘The Direct Economic Impact of Gold.’

Commissioned by the London-based World Gold Council, it reports that gold contributed 15% to PNG’s GDP in 2012. The gold mining industry employed 16,000 people in PNG and exports were worth US$2.1 billion (K5.46 billion), earning the government US$42 m (K109 million), or two per cent, in royalties.

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Westpac has named the president of PNG Women in Agriculture, Maria Linibi, as one of PNG’s six outstanding women at its annual Westpac Women in Business awards. The NGO describes itself as mouthpiece for women in agriculture, especially those in rural areas who sustain their households while producing food for PNG.

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Can PNG take advantage of its potential, is the question posed by The Australian’s Asia-Pacific Editor, Rowan Callick:

‘The scene is well set. PNG has its core of remarkably resilient local businesspeople, from Australia and Asia, to point the way. It has a can-do Prime Minister in O’Neill, who is the most powerful figure since Michael Somare … But can its political class transform itself so that it can in turn enable the country to be transformed by these once-in-a-century opportunities?’

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 The Nauru Agreement has seen control of tuna fishing move from buyers to sellers, according to the commercial manager of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA), Maurice Brownjohn. He says prices are staying above US$2,000 per tonne, and that’s because of the ‘vessel day scheme’, which has been operating since 2008.

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Pacific tourism officials are debating this week a Pacific Regional Tourism Strategy at the 23rd South Pacific Council of Ministers of Tourism Meeting in Samoa. The Chief Executive Officer of the South Pacific Tourism Organisation, Ilisoni Vuidreketi, has told the meeting that the key to their success lies in regional marketing, because the markets of Europe, the United States, and the United Kingdom do not know of the individual countries within the region.

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Respected Solomon Islands’ journalist Dorothy Wickham is conducting workshops teaching journalists about mining, as the country’s minerals sector becomes a more significant part of the economy.  Mining is expected to play an increasingly important role in the Solomon Islands economy as the country’s logging resource nears depletion.