PNG Economy

This is due to the marginal increase in imported inflation from PNG’s major trading partners and increased demand from APEC-related activities, as reported in the Bank of PNG’s Monetary Policy Statement for March.

The slight increase comes despite a downward trend in inflation from 6.6 percent in 2016 to 4.7 percent in 2017, reflecting low economic growth, relative stability in the Kina exchange rate and lower prices of seasonal food items.

This was from the executive board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in consultation with PNG on November 29, 2016.

“As a commodity exporter, the PNG economy has been hit hard by the drop in world commodity prices and a major drought. The authorities have responded to these shocks through fiscal tightening and a combination of modest exchange rate depreciation and FX sales,” the board said in a statement.

“Strong economic growth driven by the start of the PNG LNG project, has tailed off amidst weak non-resource sector growth.

The expected growth is detailed in the Oxford Business Groups (OBG) publication The Report: Papua New Guinea 2016, which was launched yesterday in Port Moresby.

OBG Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Jeffreys, said the prediction is based on PNG becoming a favoured destination for investment in the natural gas sector.