Treasurer: K18 billion growth in two years

TREASURER Ian Ling-Stuckey says Papua New Guinea’s economy is expected to grow to K18 billion over the next two years.
Ling-Stuckey said this would be the largest nominal growth in the country’s economy.
He said this would be larger than the K15 billion increase from 2013 to 2015 when the PNG LNG project commenced production.
“And it is a much more balanced pattern of growth,” Ling-Stuckey said.
“The gains from the PNG LNG growth went mainly to people living overseas.
“The gains from forecast growth over the next two years will benefit our non-resource economy and our people.
“On average, we expect the people in PNG to be K1,000 better off, over the next two years, because of the economic policies we have put in place-an increase of K9.898 billion spread across our nine million people,” he said.
Ling-Stuckey said with economic growth would come better job opportunities and more income when selling goods.
“These income will add to the revenue growth that will help with budget repair in a upright cycle of growth,” he said.
He said these growth rates were conservative.
“They have been endorsed by the IMF (International Monetary Fund) which is forecasting an K18 billion growth in our economy to K99 billion by 2022.
“These growth forecasts do not include any upsides from the expected announcements of progress with new resource activities such as Papua LNG, Wafi-Golpu, P’nyang or activities from other international investors such as Mayur Resources.”
Ling-Stuckey said the Government had started the hard work of fiscal consolidation.
“We had a flexible and responsible Covid-19 economic stimulus package, with most of the support coming through monetary policy,” he said.