Apec to deliver trade opportunities

Business

THE 2018 Apec meeting will have a positive impact on trade and investment, Professor Martin Davis, of the Institute of National Affairs, says.
He said while the meeting would be expensive to host, it was going to showcase the country to the world.
“The Apec meeting will take so much resource from potential projects around the country. But it is good exposure,” Davis said.
With the current state of the economy, Davis said the Apec meeting was an one-off event which would have many benefits in a long run.
He said there were already expenditure cuts in priority areas such as education and health which were more essential and should not be further strained.
He said the supplementary budget should target these two areas as priorities of the government for the sake of human capital.
He said although the country was facing a weakening economy, priority in those areas was important.
Davis told the Certified Practising Accountants Papua New Guinea conference in Lae on Thursday that the economy had been fluctuating since 2010.
During export boom in mid-2014 through LNG exports, the economy started gaining strength although it did not have much impact.
He said Papua New Guinea suffered a trade shock when prices of energy export fell at the world market while the imports went up.