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Date Posted: 22:58:27 02/13/00 Sun
Author: Anonymous
Subject: The Ultimate Paradox With No Downstream Processing!
In reply to: 's message, "Colonialist words" on 15:30:14 02/13/00 Sun

I understand the concern you have. I want to pick up on one of your discussion points, and explore it.

That's the point of no downstream processing. You are very right, we have very little in PNG compared to the massive amount of raw materials that are being sent out on a daily basis.

No one makes much mooney off of raw materials, neither in PNG, nor in America, nor anywhere else in the world. American and Australian farmers have suffered, many have gone bankrupt because they are under the same financial pressures that people in the village are, selling their copra, coffee, and cocoa.

So why don't we have more downstream processing? I've asked and asked, and the two main reasons are simple - we get paid too much for how much we know. In other words, the education level is not high enough in PNG. And, as pointed out already in previous discussions, if you compare the average fornightly pay of Papua New Guineans, even basic labourers, with those of nearby developing countries, we are non-competitive.

Factories won't be built here under those conditions.

The funny thing is, PNG before European influence had nothing but downstream processing. Even today, an old Sepik papa creating a storyboard is doing more downstream processing, and keeping more wealth in PNG, compared to BEST tinned fish and their giaman downstream processing (if you look closely, most everything in that "downstream procesing" is still imported, so the the value being added isn't much.

If you can give me some clues on how we can actually create more downstream processing, given the concrete obstacles I've just described, I'm all ears.

Yu tok!

CS

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