The Minister for International Trade and Investment is adamant to have the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Policy and Master Plan set and ready launched for the country by mid this year.
Minister Richard Maru, when giving an update on the policy and master plan after the inaugural SEZ Summit recently, said that both items are a work in progress at this stage.
“The secretary went through the initial drafts at the summit, we got a lot of good comments coming through so we working on fine tuning the initial draft and hopefully by next week, we’ll put a new version of the draft on our website and ask for more comments from the members of the public.”
He said once the policy is finalized it will be taken to cabinet for approval before the policy is taken to parliament and then make it available through its launching.
“We are keen on bringing the policy by June along with the master plan for the 10 year development of SEZs in Papua New Guinea (PNG).”
“We are also working on a revised legislation that we have to have completed so that after June, we’ll bring it to NEC (National Executive Summit) and parliament.
Minister Maru said the country can expect a new amended Act, a new SEZ Policy and a new SEZ Master plan deliver between July and August of this year.