Obstacles to progress

Papua New Guinea has always been a blessed nation but poor leadership, bad governance and corruption have delayed its progress and development.
We hear of huge World Bank and ADB-funded projects and while they are nowhere to be seen payments were signed off and received by contractors who rub shoulders with the politicians and their cronies.
Now we see the Exim Bank of China delivering a new style of project development by its own contractors who get paid according to the actual work in progress by ensuring quality and value for money.
At the pinnacle of the Apec Leaders’ Summit in Port Moresby, the exposure to the world raised the bar for PNG as an emerging economy.
It needs PNG to get reforms done to give more confidence to the forex and the financial market before anyone can sell PNG as an attractive destination for business.
PNG is so culturally and geographically diverse that natural disasters only affect pockets of areas and is not widespread like in other parts of the world.
The high mountains and valleys form natural windbreaks and hardly any cyclone, typhoon or flood wipe out farms or crops as seen elsewhere around the globe.
Interest is building up for the creation of large-scale farms to make PNG the food bowl of the Asia-Pacific region.

G. Spencer
Observer
NCD via email