PM off to France for high-stakes bilateral talks with Macron

Prime Minister James Marape has departed for France to engage in high-level bilateral discussions with French President Emmanuel Macron, placing global climate action and trade at the forefront of the state visit.

Marape stated that the diplomatic engagement is a matter of high priority for Papua New Guinea, given the escalating global threats of climate change and environmental destruction.

During the official visit, the Prime Minister is also scheduled to meet with senior French government officials and prominent business leaders to secure economic opportunities.

Discussions between the two heads of state are expected to center on environmental preservation, sustainable fisheries management, specifically the tuna industry, agricultural exports, and defense cooperation.

"We are due to reciprocate a bilateral in France, so on this occasion we have picked this date," Marape said. "They have given us an extraordinary honour to also address, not the Parliament, but the Senate. I will be given the opportunity to address a high-level audience of French leadership to speak on contemporary matters, not just on the PNG-France relationship, but Papua New Guinea, the Pacific, and Asia."

He said meeting with president Macron would solidify foundational bilateral work established over recent years regarding climate resilience.

"We will also be having a bilateral meeting with the President, in which some of our work that we've started the last few years [will] be entrenched in relation to climate change," he said.

The Prime Minister said France and the wider European Union remain critical destination markets for Papua New Guinea’s primary sectors, reaffirming the economic significance of maintaining strong ties with European partners.

"The European Union is an important destination for many of our products, whether it's our tuna, our oil palm, or our agricultural produce, and so it is an important country to us," Marape said.