PNG's West Sepik governor wants to boost cross-border trade The...

PNG's West Sepik governor wants to boost cross-border trade

The governor of Papua New Guinea's West Sepik province is seeking to boost agricultural trade with neighbouring Indonesia.

West Sepik abuts PNG's international border and hosts the main land access to Indonesia's Papua province, at Wutung on New Guinea's north coast.

PNG people frequently cross the border at Wutung to visit markets just inside Indonesia to buy a range of goods.

In comparison there's not a lot of trade coming the other way, said the provincial governor Tony Wouwou.

"We are trying to establish some things like cacao and vanilla going there, so we can get some of the cash back," said Mr Wouwou.

"But in the meantime, there's a lot of people from here, Papua New Guinea buying a lot of things from them, like groceries and food items, that's what's going on here.

Tony Wouwou said he hopes to visit Indonesia soon to talk with its government about co-operative ventures.

He said included in this was a proposal for Indonesia to take electricity from the planned Fried River copper and gold mine in his province.

A Chinese-owned company PanAust has lodged a special mining lease application for the Frieda River project.

A hydro-electric dam to generate the power required for the project is being considered as a source for power across the border.

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