Sovereign Wealth Fund to run: Vele

 THE Sovereign Wealth Fund is expected to be in operation this year, according to Treasury secretary Dairi Vele.

Vele made this known during a presentation to a group of overseas investors this week. 

“One of the important things that investors who want to invest in our country look for is institutional development,” he said.

“One of the major things that the country has is the Sovereign Wealth Fund that commenced last year.

“That is the organisation that will manage our LNG money, our petroleum money and our mining money more responsibly.

“Sometimes when small countries like Papua New Guinea have a lot of money from mining and petroleum, it can get wasted despite investing in the areas where we should be investing in.

“We are hoping that our Sovereign Wealth Fund allows us to manage those money much more efficiently.” 

He said the Fund was designed to manage revenues from taxes and dividends from resource sectors and the Government’s assets in all sectors, including the revenues from the PNG LNG project.

The SWF consists of a Stabilisation Fund to manage the impact of fluctuating mineral and petroleum revenues on the budget, and a Savings Fund, to provide a means of preserving the real value of deposited funds for long-term investments and for the benefit of future generations. Overall objective of the fund was to:

• Support macroeconomic stabilisation; 
• Promote intergenerational equity;
• Support asset management in relation to financial assets accrued from resource revenue; and
• Full integration with the budget and fiscal framework.

Meanwhile, the first Papua New Guinea Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative report is due on March 19.