Goods, services exports increased by K40bil: ADB

THE total exports from the country’s goods and services to the rest of the world increased to K40 billion for the last two years, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) PNG 2019 review.
Economist Megdelyn Kuari, who gave a presentation on PNG’s economy, said the increase in exports derived from the mining sector with little coming from the agriculture sector from 2017 to Sept 2019.
“Most exports are coming from the mining sector while for the agriculture sector, the contribution is not strong as in the past since 2017 to this year as well as over the medium term,” she said.
“The imports have also improved for the last three years following the contraction from 2015 to 2016 due to the implementation of foreign exchange.” Kuari highlighted that 2015 and 2016 were the most challenging years for the country when the level of balancing foreign exchange resulted in the reduction of import orders.
“The foreign exchange is on the declining trend since 2012.”
However, Kuari said the increase in goods and services exports would be coming back to support the foreign exchange and maintain the country’s imports.
“The flow of funds from the exports will be coming back to the local economy to support the foreign exchange and the imports,” she said.
Most of the business in PNG rely on exporting and importing basic goods and services to operate daily as PNG is an export and import dependent economy.
Kuari said more efforts had to be directed to the agricultural sector which saw a decline in its exports over the last two years.