Photo credit: Rocky Roe - Marape at the 37th Australia-Papua New Guinea Business Forum and Trade Expo
Prime Minister James Marape claims that the Australian government's intervention to assist PNG with budgetary support for essential infrastructure has aided the government's expansionary economic goals.
Marape said this in Brisbane at the 37th Australia-Papua New Guinea Business Forum and Trade Expo.
“In case you did not see it that is why Bank South Pacific declared their highest profit in 2021, posting over a billion kina in a year when the Porgera mine was still closed, Wafi-Golpu had not started and both Papua LNG and P’nyang LNG constructions had not started yet,” the Prime Minister told the forum.
“This shows that the use of our Government’s fiscal policies and effective operationalisation of our budget plans have kept the PNG economy functional.
“To put numbers to our Government spending, our combined 2019, 2020 and 2021 budgets saw aggregate Government expenditures to the tune of K56 billion.
“This kept our small, but the growing economy, lubricated with liquidity supplied from Government expenditures like Connect PNG, arrears and debt settlements, service improvement funds transferred to districts and provinces, record funding to health and education, paying our public services in time including clearing backlog of retirement funds are just some transactions that enabled financial life in our economy.”
Despite being a developing nation, Marape claimed the country has done well in terms of economic growth throughout the years. "Despite our economy's sensitivity to global economic and health shocks, we did significantly better than other developing countries in the previous three years," he remarked.
“Our inflation averaged under 5.5 per cent.
“Our foreign reserves in Central Bank are the highest-ever since 1975 at K10 billion-plus.
“Our budget and fiscal management is running congruent to reforms we are doing with International Monetary Fund and World Bank, and all bilateral partners like Australia and Japan.”
Reference: The National (26 May 2022). “PM: Aust’s intervention assisted Govt’s economic policies”.
