Bank prioritising trade involving FX

BANK South Pacific (BSP) Financial Group Limited tries to priorities trade when it comes to foreign exchange (FX) orders, says chief executive officer Mark Robinson.
“There have been backlogs that range probably between three weeks and eight weeks, since we have begun this year,” he said.
“We are trying to prioritise trade, which is really imports obviously and that would be fuel, food, medicines and other essential items, we would always push to the front of the queue.
“We have seen increasing intervention by the central bank (Bank of PNG) in the last several years making up more recently about 22 per cent of the volume in the FX market has been through intervention which we welcome and coming at a time when the country has got record FX reserves.”
Robinson said there were more positive outlook for the economy especially with new projects on the pipeline.
“With the year-end inflation rate of five per cent for PNG, we will continue to see intervention by the Central Bank on FX market,” he said.
“I think the backlog will obviously fluctuate.
“But reasonably the Central Bank is fully prepared to continue where necessary, which is important, without the intervention, there is an import slow down, and if there is an import slow down, obviously that affects the whole economy.”