Photo:Students in Kimbe West Britain PNG Article by Grant Walton and Husnia Hushang It’s back! This year Papua New Guinea (PNG) will implement another fee-free education policy. In June 2021, the government announced that, for the fifth time in PNG’s history, parents will no longer have to pay school fees to send their children to school. This ne...

Photo credit: Australian High Commission by Stephen Howes When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the Australian government reversed its earlier policy of cutting aid, and started to increase it. Aid increased from 2019/20 (before the pandemic) from $4.29 billion to $4.56 billion in 2020/21 (the first year of the pandemic). (All amounts are adjusted for inf...

Photo credit: Devpolicy by Stephen Howes Yesterday, Telstra announced that it was buying Digicel Pacific. Telstra itself is only paying $270 million, and the Australian government $1.33 billion. Yet, Telstra is obtaining 100% ownership. The deal is certainly an attractive one for Telstra. But does it make sense for Australia, and for the Pacific? ...

Photo: Joyce Bay settlement (Desmond Narongou) by Desmond Narongou Joyce Bay settlement, formerly known as Horse Camp, is a notorious settlement in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea (PNG). It has been known for criminal activity, and as a place where many criminals live. The settlement is located in the Port Moresby South Electorate of the National ...

Women selling coconut and bottle gourd in Intoap, PNG (P. Mathur/Bioversity International/Flickr) The socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 are devastating communities in the Pacific and Timor-Leste as much as the virus itself, and sometimes to an even greater extent. World Vision surveyed 752 households (with an average of six people per household) in...

In a commentary of Stephen Howes, Director of the Development Policy Center and a Professor of Economics at the Crawford School of Public Policy, shared his opinion and discussed how the June ASEAN agricultural visa announcement could develop or evolve. He noted three possibilities. First point he made is the possibility that Asian countries will by al...

Background – Petroleum Industry in Papua New Guinea The exploration for petroleum in Papua New Guinea has a long history which dates back to early 1900s. It began with a group of Australian geologists who first came in 1913 to PNG to investigate prospects of hydrocarbon on behalf of the Australian Government. Since then exploration activities went on ...

By Roger Kewa Avinaga Like any other industries that have been impacted by the COVID-19 in 2020, the mining industry has been impacted by the pandemic. The industry has been confronted with numerous challenges. The operations of the mines shut down, some mines have suspended or scaled down operations while others have gone into isolation mode. On the comm...

Does it make Economic Sense for PNG to Continue Imposing this Windfall Tax on Oil and Gas Projects?(a) IntroductionPNG has been applying the Additional Profit Tax (APT) since it was first introduced on Mining Projects namely OK Tedi and Pangua Mines. When oil development commenced in the early 1990s APT was applied on the first oil project – Kutubu in 199...

IN LINE WITH THE VISION TO “TAKE BACK PNG”Article by: Roger Kewa AvinagaRoger Kewa Avinaga is an accomplished corporate and government executive and Board Director having worked in oil, gas, mining and energy sectors for 20 plus years. He also worked for an international organisation – The World Bank Group. He has in-depth knowledge, understanding and ex...

By: Hayley Danielle "Opportunities don't just happen, you need to create them" - Mark StevenIntroducing you to the side hustle; A type of employment undertaken in addition to one's full-time job. Side hustles are often things a person is passionate about, rather than a typical day job worked in order to make ends meet and I have the pleasure of knowing th...

A Papua New Guinean is one of only nine (09) finalists in a global drone competition after his innovative idea was chosen from among nearly 1,000 worldwide entries.When WeRobotics launched the Unusual Solutions Competition back in June 2019, they wanted to find innovators using drones and data to address their communities’ most pressing challenges. Partic...

This is a story about a complex workplace issue - drug resistant TB and the time it takes to make a difference to change health behaviours. Most importantly it is a story about, Vidi, a TB patient and Brian Bell employee and Joan a TB warden at Brian Bell. Vidi is a 28-year-old man from Central and New Ireland who has worked with Brian Bell since 2016. J...

By Independent Power Producers of Papua New Guinea Industry GroupPower generation and transmission in small island developing states (SIDS) is typically more expensive and challenging than in larger economies. That is a reality faced by Papua New Guinea (PNG), yet often misunderstood or ignored. There are many challenges that island nations face in poweri...

Businesses already operating in Papua New Guinea (PNG) or considering investing in the country would be aware that the PNG Government has stated its intention to promote the growth of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). Proposed changes to the Foreign Investment Regime The latest proposal from the PNG Government in this field is the Investm...