Forex availability makes ‘tough year’ for firms

PORT Moresby-based businesses are in for a “tough year” with ongoing foreign exchange availability still the top of issue faced by companies.
The situation could be improved with additional loan facilities to ease the foreign exchange backlog, says Port Moresby Chamber of Commerce acting president Rio Fiocco.
“Businesses in Port Moresby are expecting another tough year with similar trading conditions to 2017,” he said.
“The major impediment is still the delay in businesses getting foreign exchange to pay their overseas suppliers. With a large backlog of orders for the banks to meet the demands of their customers it is likely to take a while for this backlog to clear.”
Fiocco said this was indicative of foreign exchange dealers’ high level of orders unfulfilled and the number of weeks needed to pay for a container of imports.
“There is little that the private sector can do to alleviate the foreign exchange shortage. What would help a lot is if the government could arrange for more dollar loans from the multilateral agencies in order to boost the incoming supply of US dollars to the market,” he said.
“The government should seriously consider a US dollar bond issue of around 500 million in order to enable the central bank to intervene more in the foreign exchange market.”