Papua New Guinea’s overall policy setting recognises the benefits of greater integration into the global market. PNG Government’s priorities are espoused in the Vision 2050 and the Development Strategic Plan 2010-2030. Trade in particular, is incorporated under the second Pillar of Vision 2050 and aligned with the fourth pillar “Wealth Creation” of the Development Strategic Plan 2030, with the aim to connect our potential secondary and tertiary industries with vibrant markets, as well as to developing robust regional and global cooperation and trade relations.
PNG’s exports are concentrated in a rather narrow range of primary commodities and in order to strengthen export performance and resilience, the government aims at strategically encouraging, among other measures, diversification of production, of products and in particular down-stream processing of its natural resources.
The effective implementation of an export oriented growth strategy in PNG is constrained by a large number of factors, including the absence of a comprehensive trade policy framework, poor coordination among actors in trade policy formulation and implementation, weak arrangements for trade facilitation and export promotion, plus issues related to the general business environment in PNG.
Department of Trade, Commerce and Industry (DTCI)
The implementing agency for the project is DTCI. In order to enhance PNG’s capability to function optimally in the global economy, it is necessary to improve information gathering and analysis, as well as policy formulation, management and implementation.
At present the Department is suffering from an insufficient level of market and trade information, and it is clear that PNG could benefit from a more long-term, comprehensive trade policy and strategy, which would improve the trade climate and decrease the use of ad-hoc decision making.
The coordination between PNG institutions and authorities, directly or indirectly involve in trade policy and trade management issues need to be improved in order to avoid contradictory regulations and procedures, and fragmented initiatives and implementation.
Building on the foundation of TRA 1, which took place from 2009 to 2011, the Phase II Project has been designed to enable PNG to benefit better from international trade arrangements, including the EU-PNG Interim Economic Partnership Agreements (iEPA).
Beneficiaries and Stakeholders
Direct beneficiaries of the project will be the Government of Papua New Guinea, in particular the Trade Division of DTCI, and other relevant trade-related stakeholder groups, government departments, institutions, organisations and enterprises; especially those concerned with quality infrastructure, regulatory control, standardisation and accreditation, and customs procedures. The stakeholders will be all actors in PNG having a relationship with trade related matters, and/or quality infrastructure and the simplification and modernization of custom procedures. The ultimare beneficiary will be the Papua New Guinea society in general, through the increased trade capacity and investment attraction, which should lead to employment creation and poverty alleviation.
The TRA II Components
The challenges of moving towards a more efficient and effective trade policy approach will be addressed by the TRA through three inter-related components:
- Component 1: Institutional reform and capacity development
- Component 2: Trade Policy Development (analysis, formulation, implementation and negotiation)
- Component 3: Trade facilitation support, including Customs, technical barriers to trade, sanitary and phyto-sanitary measuresThe project sees a contribution of almost PGK 20 million from the European Union with a Government contribution of around PGK 2.3 million, will have an operational implementation period of three years and will be supported by a Technical Assistance Team.
