BPNG looking into depreciation

By NATHAN WOTI
THE Kina is depreciating because monies are being smuggled out of the country, says deputy Customs Service commissioner Benjamin Sine.
“The movement of money out of the country is crucial, and Customs Service and the financial analysis supervision unit of the Bank of PNG is looking into (the problem),” Sine added.
“To have a strong economy in-terms of cash flow, we must have enough circulation of money in the country.
“However, there are cases where people smuggle huge sums of cash out of the country either to exchange or spend.
“At the border in Wutung, Vanimo, people are bringing cash over to Indonesia and spending all their money there.
“What they do not know is some of these countries do not have a strong currency like ours, so when they bring our Kina overseas, they get more from outside currencies from our Kina while our currency continues to lose value.”
Sine confirmed rumours of money and other valuable items such as gold being smuggled out of the country undetected and that had raised concerns to implement advanced scanners in all the ports, airports and at the Indonesia-PNG border. He said there were several cases of huge sums of money being transported out of the country, especially through Wutung, Vanimo, at the Papua New Guinea-Indonesia border.
“There is one case where a man was caught carrying up to K400,000 and was held in Wutung and brought back,” Sine said.
“Another case was here in Port Moresby where a man was held for carrying gold nuggets.”
“He was charged and the items were taken to Bank of PNG,” he added.
Sine said with the increase in prices of food and services in the country, people were smuggling money overseas to spend.
But he urged the people to understand that the more they took money out of the country, “it will reduce the circulation of cash in the country, hence affecting the value of the currency”.