Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape has announced that the forestry sector has enacted two new laws to ensure the country gets maximum value from its forestry resources. Source: Loop PNG
The laws, relating to the State Marketing Agency (SMA) and Purchase Option (PO) are among several initiatives that the PNG National Forestry Authority has undertaken during the last five years under the Marape Government.
These laws aim to ensure that the resource owners, the people who own the land on which the trees are being harvested for export, receive greater benefits from their resources while contributing more to the county’s revenue, particularly through downstream processing.
Marape highlighted these laws in a five-year anniversary report of his government presented to Parliament last week.
“In forestry, we have enacted laws that will establish the SMA and PO to buy logs from permitted operators. This cuts down on other unfair trade practices, especially transfer pricing and tax evasion,” he said.
“What we have done is foundational. Its impact will come given time. We’re dealing with issues in totality, not haphazardly, to achieve one outcome.”
Currently, the vast majority of timber produced in the country and exported is in the form of raw logs, a trend the Marape government seeks to change by promoting downstream processing, thereby exporting finished products that fetch higher prices than raw materials, ultimately contributing to the country’s overall economic improvements.
