050914TAIWAN TRADE MISSION DONATES TO NORTH BOUGAINVILLE
BY JENNIFER NKUI

The Taiwan Trade Mission representative Daniel Chun-pu Hu donated five sets of solar-powered LED street lamps, two tonnes of rice, one used Mitsubishi pickup truck and two dozens of presbyopic glasses to North Bougainville yesterday.
Giving his remarks during the donation ceremony, he pointed out that Taiwan is a trustworthy development partner of Papua New Guinea as they are following the guidelines of PNG’s Medium Term Development Goals and the 2050 vision.
He said the mission understands why PNG has listed agricultural development to be one of the key objectives to ease dependence on agricultural imports and to develop a semi-commercial agricultural production model to cope with the expanding domestic market and improve production skills of farmers and increase their income.
He added that in PNG technical assistance, training and agricultural extension system is not well organized and lacks horizontal connections and there are also insufficient government extension officers to support farmers with technical advice.
He explained further that due to PNG’s cultural and geographic diversity it is also difficult to promote agriculture.
Mr. Hu said subsistence and small holder farmers are reluctant to improve their skills and production plan thus rendering outputs to be inadequate to meet market demands.
With these mentioned situations, Mr. Hu’s mission has decided to extend their assistance in promoting economic development and enhancing capacity of local farmers to contribute to food security and eliminate poverty.
Starting from 2015, the Taiwan Trade Mission will have a new training program to help PNG and Bougainville farmers to organize themselves to improve their production skills and capabilities.
Mr. Hu then urged all Bougainville farmers to keep in touch with the office of the member for North Bougainville Louta Atoi if they are interested in obtaining an opportunity to empower themselves with advanced agricultural skills and knowledge.

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