New Zealand and PNG agrees to step up on relationship

The Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, James Marape has arrived in the country at 11:30am yesterday.

Prime Minister Marape’s official visit to New Zealand commenced with a high-level bilateral meeting held in the New Zealand Parliament in Wellington with New Zealand Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon.

They had productive discussions and enhanced bilateral relations, focused on economic cooperation, labour mobility, agriculture, education, and state-owned enterprise reforms.

Upon his arrival Marape addresses the media on the success story of his bilateral with the New Zealand counter part.

"Both parties in the government have agreed that we must step up on our relationship as we approach towards the 50th anniversary as a country. We agree that there must be a step up.

"We also did agree that the Statement of Partnership signed which will become a living document. In between now and going forward, any aspects of the relationship that needs to be refined can be of mutual beneficial to the relationship we have,"Marape said.

Marape also highlighted that other key areas of discussions includes, trade, agriculture and education exchange programs for both countries.

He said under trade discussions, New Zealand has also asked to buy gas from PNG.

"We did inform them that currently all our gas are contracted out. But if there are any opportunities in the future, we consider that.

"We also gave an indication on how other polices, especially tropical agricultural polices like coffee, cacao, etc.…we are willing to export to them. We also agreed that our own national agricultural import-export standards must step up to both New Zealand and Australia," Marape said.

Marape said the task now is to work on how to meeting the standards in agricultural production and other resources as per required by New Zealand.