Mr Fraser said a major component of the Bligh Government's $116 million Cairns Economic Future Plan was making the most of the opportunities an LNG boom in Papua New Guinea would bring, and this document was the perfect sales tool to those companies getting in on the action.

"With world class sea and air ports, Cairns has long been a stepping off point for trade and activity with Papua New Guinea," Mr Fraser said.

"While Cairns is certainly a focal point for tourism, education and medical services for ex-pats and Papua New Guinea nationals alike, it is primed to become much, much more.

"With strong engineering and manufacturing capabilities along with marine, aviation and professional services Cairns is brimming with investment potential."

Mr Fraser said the State and Federal Governments had invested more than $2 billion in the region in the last financial year alone and this along with recent private sector investment was creating a confident investment climate.

He said key investments included the:

• $192 million Cairns Airport redevelopment 
• $300 million Bluewater marina development 
• $450 million Cairns Base Hospital upgrade and
  • $20 million Cairns Institute at James Cook University

Mr Fraser said Cairns was also:

• among the top 10 fastest growing cities and regions in Australia 
• developing world-leading green technologies 
• the most visited port for cruise ships outside of Sydney 
• home to one of Australia's largest fishing fleets 
• home to one of the world's top three congress centres 
• a hub for international airport activity for the South West Pacific, and 
• has the largest avionics facility in Australia.

He said Cairns was in an ideal location to capitalise on industrial development in PNG and could look forward to benefitting not only from mining and gas industry development but from the tourism, aviation, education, health, ICT and other service delivery developments that would spin-off as a result.

"Cairns is a very liveable city offering wonderful family and recreation activities, access to two World Heritage areas in the Daintree rainforest and Great Barrier Reef and also boasts a lively cultural scene and multicultural community," Mr Fraser said.

Mr Fraser also announced the delivery of another initiative promised in the Cairns Economic Future Plan.

"As part of our plan to strength Cairns' economy for the future, we will invest nearly $100,000 to develop a new marine business matching service.

"This project is designed to not only help alleviate current difficulties the industry was facing due to the economic downturn, but to better position the industry for the longer term.

"There will be many marine refit and maintenance projects within the Asia Pacific region that Cairns could win and this project is designed to reel them in.

"This region, with the guidance of Advance Cairns, has the skills and the facilities to take on major refit and maintenance work but we need to get out there and canvass the broader market for those opportunities."