The Minister for International Trade and Investment, Richard Maru and his team are currently in New Zealand (NZ) for three days of high-level bilateral trade talks with the New Zealand Government. Minister Maru emphasized the intention of the visit is to learn from the experiences of New Zealand.  “We want to learn from the experience of New Zealand’s capital market industry and seek New Zealand Government’s support to transform the Securities Commission of PNG and the capital market industry of PNG,” the minister said. Apart from the capital market industry, Minister Maru said the team will visit New Zealand’s chicken industry and also invite the New Zealand investors in this industry to come and invest in PNG. “This is because we still continue to import an estimate of over K100 million worth of chicken annually especially from New Zealand, and this results in loss of jobs and revenue for our MSMEs, SMEs, and our industry. We want to stop that.” “We also do not want to be exposed to the risk of imported chicken diseases like the Avian Influenza and others.” “We want to produce enough day-old chicks to supply the entire need of our nation, our farmers, and our industry so we are able to produce enough chicken locally to meet the growing demand for chicken, and we also want to meet and invite some potential New Zealand investors to invest in our Special Economic Zones,” said Minister Maru. Minister Maru added that New Zealand is a world leader in Agriculture Technology (Agri-tech) and it is an important partner country that maintains strong economic growth, strength in trade exports and a close viable market, which is of strategic importance to PNG. “We can learn a lot from New Zealand to unleash the potential of our agriculture sector and New Zealand can help us with more scholarships to train more agriculture scientists in all aspects of agriculture including bio-security, which New Zealand is renowned for globally.” It is also expected that the visit will see Agriculture Minister, John Boito sign an MOU with New Zealand on agriculture cooperation. “This MOU will be an important framework that PNG can utilize to secure New Zealand’s support for the development of agriculture and livestock industries in PNG,” said Minister Maru.