Canberra names its new man in PNG Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source - VIKKI@law.uts.edu.au Wed May 19 21:54:45 1999 Postcourier - 20 May 99 Canberra names its new man in PNG AUSTRALIA'S new High Commissioner to Port Moresby is to be career diplomat Nick Warner, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer announced in Canberra yesterday. Mr Warner is currently first assistant secretary of the South and South-East Asia Division of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Until recently, he headed the department's media section and was its senior spokesman. He was ambassador to Iran from 1994 to 1997 and also served in Cambodia and Namibia. Mr Downer said Mr Warner would replace the current high commissioner David Irvine in September. Mr Irvine has served in PNG since March 1996. PNG is Australia's largest aid recipient, receiving $A321 million a year, or more than a fifth of Australia's total foreign aid budget. However, relations in recent years have been tender due to the civil war on Bougainville and an abortive military coup after the former Chan government attempted to hire mercenaries to crush the rebel Bougainville Revolutionary Army. The election in 1997 of Bill Skate as prime minister has seen relations improve, with a breakthrough on Bougainville that ended the 10-year secessionist war. Australian peacekeepers now make up a sizable commitment to the force keeping the peace on Bougainville. - AAP *** World opinion of PNG low - finance expert THE preconceived negative world view of PNG is caused by Bougainville, Sandline, and it history of relationships with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. These coupled with uncomplimentary international press reports and PNG being part of the Asian region where there is a down-turn are adding to that negative view about the country, an expert told a PNG mining conference in Port Moresby yesterday. George Bolton, project director of Export Finance and Insurance Corporation, a Sydney based company, said these were not his views but the views of independent groups and organisations which he collated for the purpose of the conference. He said some public negative comments made by world financial institutions recently have been the ones by IMF and Asian Development Bank. The IMF in one of its reports described PNG as facing ``looming financial crisis'', coupled by ``weakness in economic governance''. ADB described the country as ``suffering from poor governance and mismanagement of aid loans''. Mr Bolton said on the face of it, key ratios have weakened with the country's general debt burden going over 65 per cent of the GDP or about 110 per cent of exports. Mr Bolton said rumoured foreign reserves of the country was at about 25 per cent less than external debt servicing requirements and political system appears to be fragmented. On the regional perspective and based on Standards and Poors assessment of the economy, Mr Bolton said PNG ranked second last, before Indonesia. Countries top on the list in the region are China, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and India. He said from the facts, he gathered there are substantial potential in mining, oil and gas but commodity prices are depressed while law and order issues remain a concern. Mr Bolton said political risk insurance was also required to cover investors. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytpac-05.22.99-02:37:24-25150