MSG Secretariat hosts Consultative Meeting on preliminary draft of the “National E-Commerce Assessment of PNG” Report

A virtual consultative meeting on the preliminary draft of the National E-Commerce Assessment of Papua New Guinea Report organised by the Government of Papua New Guinea (PNG), through the National Trade Office (NTO) within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and External Trade, was successfully hosted by the MSG Secretariat on Friday 26 June 2020.

Representatives from the PNG government ministries, departments and private sector attended the consultative meeting that was chaired by Mr. Philip Mercado, Assistant Secretary – Trade Policy Coordination in the National Trade Office in Port Moresby, PNG. The consultative meeting was facilitated by Mr. Pablo Quiles, Manager I Trade Advisory Services of International Economics Consulting Ltd, and assisted by Mrs. Sovaia Marawa, Programme Manager for Trade, Investment and Economic Development at the MSG Secretariat.

In his opening remarks, Acting Director General of the MSG Secretariat, Mr. George Hoa’au welcomed everyone to the virtual meeting, saying the meeting was one of the many that the Secretariat has hosted during these “new normal times”.

The COVID-19 pandemic and related challenges he said, has had a profound impact on the world economies including the MSG region and the closure of national borders has led to a slump in demand for international travels and impacted the tourism, retail and services-related sectors. This unprecedented event has resulted in mass redundancies, unemployment and so have affected many livelihoods and global recession.

Mr. Hoa’au said the pandemic has certainly transformed how society interacts.
“It has accelerated the growth of e-commerce through increasing demand for cross border transactions via online shopping of essential goods and services and the use of enabling online platforms, services and technologies in these ‘new normal times’.

The pandemic has also underscored the need to address the challenges that the MSG region faces in bridging the digital divide both within our national borders and with other countries,” he stated.

Mr. Hoa’au commented that with these developments, the COVID-19 pandemic has triggered and brought to the fore the need for countries, more so the MSG region to examine the challenges and develop national e-commerce strategies with accompanying policies and regulations to create an enabling business environment to encourage economic growth.

He said some of the policy issues that the MSG region may need to consider, amongst others, include safe and secure online platforms, consumer protection, incentives, innovation, statistics and national forums for e-commerce.

Mr. Hoa’au said that with this background, this national dialogue has been organised in a timely manner to consider the preliminary draft National E-Commerce Assessment Report for PNG. He said the National E-Commerce Assessment Report is helpful particularly to provide guided actions to create an enabling environment for faster and secure cross border movement of goods and services that will also generate opportunities and contribute to economic growth.

“This project, is a joint initiative of the MSG Secretariat and Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat to assist the Forum Island Countries (FICs) and indeed our MSG members develop national E-Commerce Strategies. The second phase of this project will require the development of a Regional E-Commerce Strategy and Implementation Roadmap for FICs and MSG,” he added.

Finally, Mr Hoa’au expressed his sincere appreciation to Tradecom II Programme funded by the European Union for supporting the Pacific through this technical assistance programme, to prepare national assessments of e-commerce environment in Fiji, PNG and two other countries in the Pacific.

“In particular, we would like to thank our partner, the Permanent Delegation of the Pacific Islands Forum – Geneva Office for spearheading this initiative. International Economics Consulting Limited (IEC), represented by Mr. Pablo Quiles here today, is conducting the national e-commerce assessment for PNG.

“I am pleased that stakeholders from both government and private sector are present in this meeting,” he said. Mr Hoa’au encouraged participants to provide their contributions to guide the development of an informed and well researched national assessment report on the e-commerce environment in PNG.