Yala: Respect bank

 THE independence of the Bank of Papua New Guinea in discharging its traditional mandate of formulating monetary policy must be respected by all, including the Government, National Research Institute director Dr Charles Yala says.

He was at the launch of two research papers by the bank in Port Moresby. They are the “Demand for money in Papua New Guinea” by BPNG staff Tanu Irau, and the “Estimating an aggregate import demand function for PNG” by Gail Sabok and  BPNG staff Boniface Aipi.

Yala said NRI which was a link between policy makers and academics recognised and respected the Central Bank as the institution responsible for formulating monetary policy.

He said the bank’s aim was to make sure that there was price stability.

Yala said the bank must not be influenced by the Government in ways that contravened laws governing it. He said in a similar manner, the NRI recognised the department of Treasury as the formulator of fiscal or budgetary policy for the country.

Meanwhile on the state of the economy, Yala said NRI would carry out its assessment and give its view on the economy by next month.