Government plans to invest K200m yearly for SMEs
The Government will invest K200 Million ( US$57,998,685.75) each year for 10 years to to support local Entrepreneurs and Small Business owners. This budget will ensure local business have low-cost loans or financing facilities to grow their capital. The Government will transfer the K200 Million ( US$57,998,685.75) from National Budget
This was according to Prime Minister James Marape during an annual Pangu Pati dinner in Port Moresby on Saturday (21st December 2019).“We have learnt and we are taking steps to encourage Papua New Guineans to step out into various businesses opportunities available in our country,” he said.“At present, statistics show 90 per cent of PNG citizens are dependent on the 10 per cent who are in businesses or employment.“This statistic is unsustainable.“To encourage business to grow, we will provide security funds and create business incentives like tax breaks in special economic zones so businesses can grow.“We are a political party working with likeminded political parties to entrench our ambition to grow businesses in our country.“Let me acknowledge these parties and their leaders who are with us today.He said economic independence was “all about our people and our business partners having money in their pockets”.“Present day Pangu is about government creating legislative, policy and budgetary pathways for our citizens and cooperate friends to be empowered to do businesses“We have shown in our 2020 budget that we want our citizens to go into micro, small, medium and big businesses.“We will use our 2020 budget and future budgets as a tool to grow and diversify local businesses.“For those long term residents who are in businesses, I encourage you all to incubate local MSMES (micro, small and medium enterprises) to grow with you.“For new foreign direct investors (FDI), must come with capacity into defined levels befitting of FDIs whilst associating with local business in honour of our country’s content policies.“No more will you pay favours to gain attention or contract, no more will progress of businesses be tedious and cumbersome.“We must grow our economic base in all sectors – tourism, manufacturing, agriculture, fisheries, downstream forestry, technological industries, commerce and finance and mining and oil and gas too.“We recently passed a K18billion-plus budget but of that we as an economy can generate only K14 billion next year.
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