PNG National Research Institute lauches new website

THE PNG National Research institute yesterday launched its new website to replace the old one.

Senior Deputy Director Dr David Ayres when giving an overview of the new website stated that private sectors are the main players in building the country’s economy however they are still facing challenges through internet rates.

Mr Ayres said based on experiences faced by the institute they have decided to invest heavily in internet which is cost saving as previously all reports are printed out and despite selling reports, NRI has never recovered any costs of printing those reports.

"We are confident that the situation will continue to improve as from the lessons learnt from our past experiences other businesses can save substantial amount of money if they too invest in technology.

"Our motivation is to be the driver of the process and with the new website this is sort of our way of demonstrating confidence in the sector," he said.

Mr Ayres added that the latest report in internet rates was born out of their very own experiences but it was an experience they knew should be shared elsewhere.

He said this report is very much a first step in establishing a dialogue around this issue adding that it’s also inevitable that people would disagree with the findings of the report.

"That is probably a good thing because by disagreeing with the findings of the report they have motivation to begin to engage with us.

"What we would hope is that this report is the starting point of process for stakeholder engagement which NRI intends to facilitate as much as we can."

"The process of stake holder engagement is where we can begin to unravel some of these particular issues," he said.

Mr Ayres stated that currently there are 150 reports available on the website and copies of reports that were released since 1970 will be available soon on the website for the people to see and download for free adding that there is a section for blogs and people are welcomed to comment their views in that page.

"This is part of the evolution for PNG’s Knowledge hub and the next evolution is we’ll be putting up price trackers for internet rates so that people can make more informed consumer decisions," he said.