The National, Wednesday, June 8th 2011
THE United States will relocate its regional USAID office to Papua New Guinea, Radio New Zealand reported yesterday.
It quoted Auckland University Pacific Studies specialist Dr Steven Ratuva as saying that the US decision not to reopen its aid office in Suva, Fiji, was a snub for the government of commodore Frank Bainimarama.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last year announced the United States’ main development agency would be returning to the region after 15 years.
She said then that it would be set up in Suva, but Radio New Zealand understood the office was now destined for PNG.
Ratuva said that was a logical move.
“Papua New Guinea is the growing economic power in the Pacific because of the mining and the resources there.
“Economically and politically, I think it is a snub for Bainimarama,” he said, adding that PNG had vast mineral wealth, for which the US was competing for with China.