Putting Partnerships into Practice. 2020 edition

Putting Partnerships into Practice | 2020 edition

The EPA with Pacific states

PAPUA NEW GUINEA Onshore fish processing creates female employment opportunities

Under the Pacific EPA’s rules of origin, Papua New Guinea has obtained a derogation for ‘global sourcing’ (meaning Papua New Guinea can source fish from third-country vessels and process it further). It takes into account the Pacific states’ own limited fishing capacity and promotes the development of an onshore processing capacity to create local employment, skills transfer and income. At the same time, strong monitoring provisions ensure long-term sustainability of fish stocks. Since the conclusion of the EPA, five major onshore investment projects have been established in Papua New Guinea, leading to an increase in direct and indirect employment, mainly for women. By 2014 Papua New Guinea had reported 50 000 extra jobs in tuna canning, 90 % of them held by women. Exports of processed tuna to the EU have increased by almost 300 % since 2009. They reached EUR 163 million in 2018, accounting for 18.5 % of Papua New Guinea’s total exports to the EU that year.

As Hon. Richard Maru, the former Minister for National Planning and Monitoring, explains: ‘Since being given duty-free market access to the European Union, thousands and thousands of jobs, mainly for women and our young girls, have been created. We are extremely grateful that the European Union has given us preferential market access that no other region or country in the world has given us’ ( 5 ).

The EU supports business-to-business (B2B) networking to strengthen investment, local processing, value addition and effective market access. The first EU–Pacific B2B conference was held in Port Moresby in June 2019 and saw the launch of the EU–PNG (Papua New Guinea) Business Council. A new EU-funded development programme (worth EUR 85 million) will strengthen agriculture value chains (vanilla, cocoa, etc.) in Papua New Guinea and will help improve the business environment (for example the creation of a single-window system for investment).

( 5 ) Interview for the documentary EU–PNG, 40 years of partnership , in 2018.

31