Motukea Island a ‘suitable site’ for port relocation, majority of Papua New Guinea SMEs in retail, and PNG first Pacific nation to join alliance. Your weekly digest of the latest business news.

An Environmental Impact Statement has recommended Motukea Island as ‘a suitable site for the relocation of the Port of Port Moresby based on consideration of potential social, environmental and economic impacts’. The assessment, by Golder Associates, says the relocation aligns with local and national transport and economic development goals and local planning visions.

‘In addition it poses a lower risk of environmental impacts than the other sites considered prior to site selection,’ say the report’s authors.

***

A Department of Trade, Commerce and Industry survey reports 54% of all SMEs operate in retail trade, that 67% of SMEs are wholly male-owned; 13% are wholly foreign-owned; 69% of SME owners surveyed expecting to increase their workforce in the next year; and 50% rate access to loans and credit as difficult.

***

Treasurer Patrick Pruaitch

PNG is the first Pacific nation to join the Better Than Cash Alliance government alliance, whose aim is to make all payments of government salaries and social security protection through electronic transfers.

‘Using digital tools like mobile and branchless banking will help people build savings while giving the Government a more cost-effective, efficient, transparent and safer means of disbursing and collecting payments,’ says PNG Treasurer Patrick Pruaitch.

***

Agriculture Minister, Tommy Tomscoll, says the setting up of a Coffee Industry Corporation office in Sydney is a strategic decision and it will re-export PNG coffee to other markets. The Post-Courier says PNG’s coffee industry is competing with countries that do not grow coffee but have now become exporters, such as Singapore.

***

Oil Search will be supplying fuel to PNG Power Limited to facilitate a 24-hour power supply to Tari, in Hela Province. This follows the upgrading of PNG Power’s power plant in Tari, with assistance from Oil Search.

***

Papua New Guinea will be ready for the 2018 Asia Pacific Economic Conference (APEC) summit, according to PNG APEC interim chief executive officer Chris Hawkins. He said that despite criticisms of PNG’s ability to host the event, he believed the country had the capacity to stage a successful meeting.

***

SP Brewery’s SP Lager

SP Brewery is aiming to pioneer the cassava industry in Papua New Guinea by looking at the possible local sourcing of the plant into its beer processing. The company announced the plans when Managing Director Stan Joyce signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the PNG Department of Agriculture and Livestock recently.

***

Public hearings on PNG’s proposed Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) have begun. The third reading of the bill is expected in May. Bank of PNG Governor Loi Bakani says work has begun on amendments. The Post-Courier reports Bakani saying a working committee wants 100% of oil and gas revenues to go into the fund, but the government has proposed only 50% of revenue go into the Fund.

***

The agriculture industry aims to create 23 SMEs by 2017, says Kokonas Indastri Koporesen Managing Director James Kaiulo. But, he told an industry summit, to meet the target, it would need at least K5 million, and K40 million over four years, for seed funding, improving product quality, packaging, labelling and marketing of coconut products, training and more test laboratories.

***

Gold and copper miner PanAust Ltd has advised investors to hold on to their shares after a takeover bid from Guangdong Rising Assets Management. GRAM has upped its shareholding in PanAust to 24.1%, after buying 10.5 million shares last week. GRAM has offered A$1.71 for each remaining PanAust share, well below its 2014 offer of A$2.30.

***

Steamships Trading Company reports its profit in 2014 decreased by 22.2 per cent to K88.7 million compared with K114 million in 2013. Chairman Geoff Cundle said weaker agricultural commodity prices and the stronger Kina took their toll on the non-resource sector of the economy. He said the mid-year intervention by the Bank of PNG added unwelcome disruption and uncertainty to foreign currency transactions and created an additional cost burden for much of the business community.

***

The Mineral Resources Authority is looking for consultants to assess Ramu Nickel project’s PIP infrastructure projects in Madang Province. The assessment is part of a 2013 revised MOA, and the destruction of machines and other assets last year by landowners, who were angry about lack of benefits flowing to them.

***

Newcrest Mining Ltd has extended two Ausenco Ltd contracts for capital works at the Lihir Island gold project in Papua New Guinea. Newcrest has contracted Ausenco, which has provided sustaining capital and engineering services at the Lihir mine since December 2012, through to December 2016.

***

Dr Ray Anere

Leading political scientist at the National Research Institute and former Chairman of the National Capital District Commission Taskforce, Dr Ray Anere, has died.

***

Nautilus Minerals is to begin seafloor exploration in Solomon Islands from the middle of April.

***

The ANZ Bank and the Banco Nacional de Comércio de Timor Leste (BNCTL) are to develop a mobile phone banking program in Timor Leste. The Chairman BNCTL, Brigido de Sousa, says about 13% of East Timorese have deposit accounts. The agreement also involves the ANZ’s financial literacy program, Money Minded.

***

And finally, the Port Moresby betelnut trade is worth more than K3 million a week, reports the Post Courier. Despite roadblocks, the newspaper says a 24-hour local trading market operates ‘at Pinu or Ukaukana junction where buai traders from Kerema and Mekeo meet with their Port Moresby buyers and clients, mostly Motuan villagers and Highlanders, who travel there by night’.