Prime Minister, Papua New Guinea
A CLOSER LOOK MARAPE OFFICIAL TRIP
Prime Minister James MARAPE in his official visit to the four world's leading Gross Domestic Product countries ended with great dialogue being exchanged beneficial to the growth of the nation. Tonight we take a closer look into what the Prime Minister discussed with the leaders of these countries.
About James Marape
Prime Minister James Marape delivered a major speech in Parliament during a debate on the Bougainville Affairs Report, emphasizing the importance of respecting the Bougainville Peace Agreement and the Constitution. He said that Parliament must find a solution, stating "if there is a no it must be a no with a yes" and that consensus should be sought. Marape apologized for underfunding the autonomous region since 2001, noting that Bougainville collects less than five percent of its annual expenditure budget. He argued that Bougainville should draw down existing autonomous powers under Section 299 of the Constitution rather than waiting for independence, and he declared that no PNG security forces would enter Bougainville again. Marape also asserted that the United Nations will not define the future relationship between PNG and Bougainville. On domestic political matters, Marape addressed a court challenge by the opposition and said the opposition
Transcript (14 segments)
✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
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Narrator0:01
The Prime Minister commands the official trip to London in the United Kingdom to pay respect to the passing of the late Queen Elizabeth II and also pay respect to King Charles III for ascending the throne.
When having an audience with the King, important issues were discussed and PNG's potential to contribute to combat the world's biggest threat, the climate change war, was at the center of the King and Marape's conversation. The King has shared similar ideas with Prime Minister Marape on the importance of forest conservation. The Prime Minister said as the conversation focused on the rainforest of Papua New Guinea, King Charles agreed with his own long-held view that PNG must be remunerated for the preservation of its trees by industrialized carbon-emitting countries as a climate crisis mitigation strategy. He said his conversation with him was totally in line with this government policy. Prime Minister Marape said King Charles III went further by saying he is willing to mobilize his global network of environment conservationists, climate activists, and environmentally conscious global cooperation to assist PNG in this area of forest conservation. Prime Minister James Marape also extended the invitation to the King to attend the country's 50th Anniversary, which will fall in 2025, of which the King duly accepted the invitation. "2025 would be 50 years since you were in Papua New Guinea for a second time. Can you be our chief guest?" He made mention he needs to polish his Pidgin.
The Prime Minister then attended the 77th UN General Assembly, where he presented to the international community what PNG can offer to address some of the underlying issues that are of global concern, including climate change, hunger, and poverty.
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James Marape2:20
Prime Minister James Marape has again called on world leaders, especially the developed nations, to be more proactive in implementing the Paris Agreement on combating climate change, highlighting that Pacific island nations including Papua New Guinea continue to meet the requirements. However, these efforts have seen little support from the global North despite small countries like Papua New Guinea who don't have many big carbon footprints. It is however disheartening to note that despite our proactive national efforts to implement our Paris Agreement commitment, we seem to be getting the raw end of the deal all the time. We have done our part. We have had little support from the global North, including our submissions to the Green Climate Fund.
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Narrator3:09
The Prime Minister also highlighted one of the emerging issues as alluded to by the Secretary General of the United Nations, which was the issue of global food security.
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James Marape3:20
PNG has more than 8 million people and has enough land mass that can contribute to feed the world. Today, in many parts of the world, we're facing food security as you alluded to, hunger and poverty. This can be something that Papua New Guinea can assist to contribute to alleviating, as far as our global contribution is concerned. He said this is viewed not only as a revenue source for the economy but also a conduit to empower the majority of the rural communities through introduction of innovative farming methods in cash crop production, livestock, and poultry to take ownership and leadership of their development needs and livelihoods. Papua New Guinea has enough land, sea, and people to be a food supplier to the world. Mr. Secretary General, in response to your concerns for global food security and at the same time also foster poverty alleviation and food security, it is from this perspective that we have established new ministerial portfolios for oil palm, for coffee, and for livestock that will assist us cater better not only for the needs of our rural communities and the local economies to be integrated into the national and global markets, but also to improve their lives and livelihood to be a source for food security and hunger and poverty alleviation.
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Narrator4:47
He then extended the invitation to development partners, especially in the agriculture sector, who can bring in modern technology to contribute to downstream processing.
The Prime Minister then visited Australia, and at a bilateral meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, he highlighted that the Australian Prime Minister will visit PNG on the second week of December, and prior to that, a PNG-Australia Ministerial Forum will be held in November in Canberra, where arrangements of concrete exchange will be made. This is also in support of the work that was started three years ago.
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James Marape5:25
As we start to bring Papua New Guinea and Australia much closer, we want to go beyond the closeness we have had thus far in as far as status quo relation to the consent and migrate towards a greater trade, economic, and commercial relationship, and people-to-people, public service to public service, and education and employment opportunities for our people.
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Narrator5:46
From Australia, the Prime Minister headed for the state funeral of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo, in which Marape also had a bilateral with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, where Abe announced that Japan has shown great interest to continue to have a good relationship with PNG and to work towards strengthening trade and economic relationship.
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James Marape6:11
Japan, a nation with a lot of opportunity for us to continue on benefiting from, especially in our focus to export finished product, and we did encourage Japanese companies to come in with the technology and with the capacity to partner our businesses here in our country. The Honorable Richard Maru was with us as a minister for international trade and he would take lead in those spaces, and I introduced him to the Japanese Prime Minister and the Japanese leadership.
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Narrator6:44
Then attended the US-Pacific Island Summit in Washington DC, in which Prime Minister Marape also had a bilateral with US President Joe Biden.
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James Marape6:55
The US has opened up other facilities for PNG to have access and to assist in ramping up the products and process, as well as assisting PNG to create employment opportunities. We'll not only be talking about aid and grants, but we're looking at US companies coming in here, staying here, partnering us as we work to ramp up our own production of our local producers who are expert back to market also. And the United States is the biggest economy, biggest market. We look forward to the United States being a place of more exchange of trade, business, and commerce. Those who are acknowledged, and President Biden was able to also receive me at the White House and we had deep conversation in this regard.
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Narrator7:44
The four nations that the Prime Minister visited on behalf of PNG and made contact with control 35 percent of the world's gross domestic product. The country is blessed by the last two weeks or so of engagements with international leaders. The contact with UK, contact with US, contact with Japan, contact with Australia, it's a contact with 35 percent of world's GDP. Marape also highlighted that the ministers responsible will begin to get to work on what he had discussed with those international leaders. Marape returned to the country on the 5th of October.