PNG to maintain standstill position on fishing subsidies

Pacific ACP Trade Ministers have been told that Papua New Guinea will maintain its position to standstill on fisheries subsidies.

International Trade and Investment Minister, Richard Maru is in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates attending the 13th Ministerial Conference for the World Trade Organisation where he informed his colleague Pacific ACP Ministers of PNG's position in a briefing.

Minister Maru maintains that PNG will not be stepped over by the larger fishing nations, and not this time around.

"The time has come for us to rise up and we need to start giving them a signal that the days of using our resources and using us just for our resources has to be a thing of the past. For PNG we are in transition.

"We will for the first time in our history introduce an export tax to all fishing companies that bring out unprocessed fish from our waters starting in July this year", Mr Maru said.

The Minister went on to further say that PNG is keen to domesticate its fishing industry with plans already in place to buy into a major fishing company in the country.

This fishing company following negotiations that are underway, is set to own fishing vessels that will fish PNG waters and eventually build and own processing facilities.

" We are going to declare the proposed Pacific Marine Industrial Zone (PMIZ) in Madang a free trade zone and give tax incentives to every company who wants to build their own processing facilities in the PMIZ including those from the Pacific Region. 

"We already have a wharf, and we are working on servicing all the vessels and we are going to start work in a very serious way starting this year. We cannot continue to be rent collectors; that has to be a policy of the past. We have had enough; the time for change has come and PNG is prepared to lead that change," Maru said.

Distant water fishing nations causing environmental problems and creating unfair competition

Mr Maru further said a strong overcapacity and overfishing [OCOF] agreement at this ministerial conference will complement the Agreement of Fisheries Subsidies-subsidies to illegal, unregulated and unreported [IUU] fishing and subsidies to fishing on overfished stocks, and this would be in the best interest of Pacific Island members.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 14.6) stipulated that certain fishing subsidies cause environmental and economic harm and must be prohibited.

The Agreement of Fisheries Subsidies (AFS) concluded at the Geneva 12th Ministerial Conference [MC12] in June last year did not cover subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing (OCOF) which has always been the most commercially important third pillar of longstanding negotiations. 

Minister Maru also met with the Fijian Deputy Prime Minister & Minister for Trade, Cooperatives, Small and Medium Enterprises, and Communications, Hon. Manoa Seru Narakasabaria Kamikamica after the briefing and agreed to meet in Suva this week for bilateral talks.

“The agendas of the discussions will include ratification of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) Trade Agreement, dual listing of the PNG stocks in the Fiji Stock Exchange and vice versa, investment opportunities for Fiji investors in Special Economic Zones in PNG especially manufacturing companies, investment opportunities for PNG companies in Fiji, training of Papua New Guineans in Fiji in the area of tourism, and non-tariff barriers of PNG export goods to Fiji,” Mr Maru said.