New Zealand has announced the approval of eight proposals supporting Papua New Guinea as the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) hosts for 2018.

“APEC is a valuable mechanism to advance trade, economic, technological and social development cooperation, collaboration and innovation amongst the partner economies and the wider Asia Pacific region,” New Zealand High Commissioner Sue Mackwell said.

New Zealand was one of the first economies to support Papua New Guinea’s bid to host APEC 2018.

“We are extremely excited to continue to support Papua New Guinea as it looks ahead to SOM (Senior Officials Meeting) 1, next month,”Mr Mackwell said.

In 2017 the New Zealand government established an NZ$8 million (K15.5 million) APEC fund to support Papua New Guinea’s host year.

“We have now completed the assessment of the first round of applications to fund. We are pleased to be able to support eight proposals which will see funding directed to water policing, cyber security, activities to support the PNG Defence Force (PNGDF) which includes support for Incident Response Group preparations, Defence Intelligence training and the contributions of New Zealand Defence assets and staff for leaders week.”

The fund brings New Zealand’s contribution to PNG’s hosting of APEC to NZ$15m (K30 million).

This includes support to Papua New Guinea’s APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), protocol and liaison training, the contribution of a senior national officer to PNG Joint Security Task Force and a New Zealand Police (NZP) contingent of 11 officers working under the PNG-Australian Policing partnership in support of the Royal PNG constabulary’s APEC training and preparations .

High Commissioner Mackwell acknowledged the challenges of hosting APEC- something New Zealand is also preparing for as they look to become hosts in 2021.

“Papua New Guinea’s experiences and lessons learned will be of great interest to us,” she said.