Papua New Guinea, Its Economic Situation and Prospects for Development

Book excerpt: Papua New Guinea is a newly-independent country, richly endowed with good soils, abundant rainfall, considerable mineral resources, and with forestry and fisheries resources of good commercial potential. The government has shown an impressive ability to deal with the young country's financial, economic, and political problems, and an effective set of institutions for economic and financial management has been created. Development strategy must aim at growing internal and external financial viability and at using the growing resources of financial viability to finance substantive programs designed to increase productivity on a wide front. The strategy hopes to reflect the government's social and cultural values, including the need for increasing national production, which is expected to come partly from a small number of highly productive enclave projects and partly from much broader growth of output in agriculture and industry. Other concerns are income distribution and the quality of life. The strength of Australia's long-term aid commitment and the large role tax revenues from enclave projects play in the thinking of policy makers have prevented attention to new sources of tax revenue and efforts to reduce the cost of government, both of which will be required.