B’ville keen on Chinese ventures

By PETERSON TSERAHA

AUTONOMOUS Bougainville Government (ABG) President James Tanis has supported a call for Chinese investment in the region.
Mr Tanis said that former Bougainville Governor John Momis’s call for Bougainville to consider China as an investment partner made a lot of business sense.
Mr Tanis said this when he welcomed Mr Momis home for a visit after four years as Papua New Guinea’s ambassador to the People’s Republic of China,
Mr Momis, known as the “father of the PNG Constitution”, is the third Bougainvillean to serve in PNG’s overseas missions since independence. The first was Sir Alexis Sarei who served as ambassador to the United States in New York followed by the late Peter Tsiamalili, who served in Fiji and Brussels.
Mr Tanis said that many countries were looking towards China for investment opportunities and PNG should do likewise.
He said that he was also interested in engaging China’s assistance in the agriculture sector.
Mr Tanis said however that, his government needed a clearly defined foreign investment policy that would act as a guide in line with the Bougainville peace agreement and the National Government understanding of the process of drawing down of powers to Bougainville.
He said the Bougainville executive council of which he is chairman, met on Friday to consider matters relating to the region’s economic and foreign investment policy.
The council also discussed funding of a business seminar for national and foreign participants.
Mr Tanis said the seminar was being organised by the division of commerce and industry and he hoped that resolutions from the meeting would form the basis of the ABG’s economic and investment policy.