Improve manufacturing and agriculture sectors

GROSS Domestic Product (GDP) refers to the total monetary value of all final goods and services produced and sold within a country during a period of time.
In Papua New Guinea, about 80 per cent of the population live in rural areas and produce little to feed themselves.
They did not directly contribute to the country’s GDP.
Our export earnings are not improving and our tourism sector is not performing well.
When you look at Australia, their agriculture sector is very effective.
When I took flight from Cairns to Sydney, I saw farms all the way from from air.
This means that every rural residents produce more than enough agricultural products for commercial purpose.
The Australian government invests heavily in the manufacturing industry and mineral extractive industry as well.
Therefore, the GDP of Australia is constantly increasing as everyone is working towards this increase.
PNG should follow the success story of Australia.
This is not so for PNG where the bulkd of the population live in the rural areas expecting the Government to provide for them with the little revenue that is received from taxes and export earnings.
Our total revenue is then divided by summing up 20 per cent of a productive population and 80 per cent of the unproductive population to come up with a GDP per capita that does not look attractive.
If we want to improve this, we should stop importing food and other items that we can produce in the country.
We should improve our manufacturing sector and improve the agriculture sector.
We should encourage our people to engage in agriculture and subsidise the machineries needed.
Tighten up reserved business law and clamp down on tax evasion and tax holidays.
Review and amend employment laws so that we retain enough revenue onshore.
If we are not careful, we will not improve.

Gibson Lambea Mai,
Ialibu-Pangia