Online trade slowly picking up, says exec

PAPUA New Guinea has not experienced the significant boom in online business activity during the Covid-19 restrictions compared to economies around the world, an official says.
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) PNG director Michael Collins said it was encouraging to see many PNG entrepreneurs becoming active in the information technology space and introducing new cost-effective solutions to the market.
“PNG was relatively late on the uptake for online business activity due to the high data communication costs, poor reliability and lower consumer coverage,” he said.
“The completion of the Coral Sea cable and improved internal infrastructure has significantly improved system reliability, although data costs still remain prohibitively high for many consumers and SMEs.
“One of the other inhibitors has been the lack of a cost-effective payment gateway for PNG businesses. However, we expect to see an exponential growth in online business activity as availability, access and affordability improve and consumers start to appreciate some of the benefits.”
The PwC has completed its global family business survey report and released in February.