Business group optimistic of sovereign bond roadshow

By MATTHEW VARI

Sunday, November 15, 2015 (Sunday Chronicle, PNG)

WITH plans by the National Government to undertake its sovereign bond roadshow by the end of the month- international business reporting publisher, Oxford Business Group (OBG) has indicated optimism on the part of the government team that will hit the road to lure in foreign investment capital in the tune of US$1 billion.

Editorial Director of OBG Marco Venditti said, when asked by the Sunday Chronicle, that despite a strong case for the country in a geopolitical sense the group could not be sure of the success of the set target, however reiterated the success in growth has PNG moving in the Asia Pacific Region with a stronger case.

As a business reporting agency that produces 38 reports in 34 emerging developing countries- the group reports have wide reach in telling the economic world of the potential of the PNG economy with subscribers from 293 executives of the top fortune 500 companies in the world.

“It does look at a very interesting market and we do know that for a fact, because Oxford Business Group is present in 33 developing countries in the world, where we see Latin America struggling, Africa picking up but still very slow rate, Asia Pacific and PNG in particular has very interesting position,” Marc Venditti said.

“The government is looking at other countries in the world that have recently launched national bond, namely, Mongolia, Gabon, and others developing markets looking at the international community and see what sort of appetite there is for investment.”

“I think it will be successful bond at the end of the day, but am not sure that they will be able to raise that much and if we look at the experience of other countries having launched bonds this year there is an appetite in international markets for frontier investments.”

He added that the PNG story is one of interest, perhaps in the short run is looking tough because of the drop of oil so dramatically in December 2014 and also by bad luck all the other export commodities prices.

“It is a bit of an unfortunate year in that sense. There is a sort of tendency in comparing the result of this year to the one of the previous year and basically use that as a bench mark.”

“This country has gone to a point where you have to look year on year growth, to look at where you can position geopolitically this country. In the long run this country is really very interesting because of the need of agricultural products and hydrocarbons in this part of the world in Asia is growing tremendously.”

“If you look around there are only a few countries in the world that can provide that and PNG is one of them, not even Australia, basically production there has nearly stopped because it is so expensive.”