This year will be better, says Treasurer

THE PNG Restoration and Growth Commitment 2020-2022 sets out the Government’s policy visions, principles and actions through to the 2022 elections, Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey says.
Ling-Stuckey said 2020 was tough, but 2021 would be better.
He said the Marape Government understood that last year was hard on PNG businesses and families.
“After the economic recession of 2018, growth had bounced back by 6 per cent in 2019 under the Marape government,” he said.
“The prospects were good as the economic reform programme, supported by international partners (has) begun.
“Budget reforms were underway, PNG Connect was underway, foreign exchange reforms were underway, financing reforms were underway, tax avoidance was being targeted and the growth focus was on supporting the agriculture, tourism, manufacturing and services sector, especially small to medium enterprises (SMEs).
“Then a once in a century pandemic (Covid-19) reduced global growth to the worst recession since WWII.
“(The recession is) much worse than the Asian financial crisis that created problems in the late 1990s.”
Ling-Stuckey said the recession was much worse than the global financial crisis of 2008.
“In response to a K2.7 billion drop in forecasted revenues, the Government cut the budget hard in the 2020 supplementary budget, absorbed all Covid-19 expenditure and financed the gap on some of the best terms,” he said.