Over K70bil earned in ’17

By DALE LUMA
PAPUA New Guinea (PNG) generated a total of K72.5 billion in the 2017 financial year, according to the National Statistics Office (NSO).
This was announced on Friday during the launch of the 2017 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimates by the NSO in Port Moresby.
Acting national statistician John Igitoi said this was mainly the result of a strong performance by the country’s extractive and agriculture sectors.
“Generally our economy during 2017 was doing relatively well compared to other economies around the region,” he said. “From 2016-2017, there was an economic growth of 11.5 per cent, meaning that the economy was performing well.
“Our economy was therefore resilient based on mining and agriculture activities.”
Igitoi said other sectors such as forestry, fisheries, wholesale and retail trade, administrative and support services and construction also contributed to the GDP growth.
He explained that there were 21 industries that measured the economic growth of the country that year and there were two methods for measuring the economic growth.
“One is the constant price and the other one is the current price.
“The current price talks about the nominal growth and the constant price talks about the real growth, meaning that we have a base year period.
“For this case, we had 2013 as our base year price and measure the progress of the country’s economic activity.
“The current price for GDP in 2017 is K72.5 billion, an increase of K7.5 billion or 11.5 per cent from 2016 current price GDP.
“The constant price GDP for 2017 is K63.9 billion, an increase of K2.2 billion or 3.5 per cent from 2013 constant price GDP.”
Igitoi said that the compilation of the 2017 GDP estimates were done using data collected from various agencies such as Customs, Bank of Papua New Guinea, Internal Revenue Commission and Treasury.
He also acknowledged the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Internal Monetary Fund for technical assistance in the 2017 GDP estimates.
It was also announced that the launching of the 2018 GDP estimates would be released in July next year.