Speaking to customers at the Madang Lodge last Tuesday, Kina Bank’s Chief Executive Officer Greg Pawson revealed the Bank was building a suite of products and services that no other bank would match.
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“By the end of this year our product and service offering will eclipse that of every other bank in Papua New Guinea,” he announced.‍

​Papua New Guinea's new prime minister says his government will review laws governing resource sectors.

James Marape was elected by MPs on Thursday as the country's new prime minister, replacing Peter O'Neill who earlier resigned after almost eight years in power.

Mr Marape has prioritised addressing uneven benefits from the country's abundant resource wealth.

KINA Bank is aiming to become the leading financial technical bank in the country when it acquires ANZ’s retail, commercial and small to medium enterprise (SME) business on 23 Sept, chief executive Greg Pawson says.

“We are taking a very significant upgrade of our infrastructure,” he said during the Port Moresby Chamber of Commerce and Industry business breakfast in Port Moresby last week.

“As being PNG’s leading digital bank and, certainly, we bring a lot of capability into PNG with banking, innovative banking technology evolving over the coming year as well.

“Some of the technology that we have switched on waiting for the Coral Sea Cable to be able to clog in will bring PNG into the digital age.

THE kina has further depreciated against the US dollar last month from $0.2970 at the end of December 2018 to $0.2965.

This is a further depreciation of the kina from the end of December 2017 when the US dollar was pegged at $0.3095.

BPNG Governor Loi Bakani in the latest monetary policy statement said this depreciation against the US dollar reflects the continued high import orders in the market.

Papua New Guinea’s debt to GDP sits at K25.8 billion (US$7.6 billion) for the year 2018.
 
This is 31.1 per cent which is within the fiscal strategy of the government, according to the Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer Charles Abel.
 
Abel said the debt to GDP is still within the Fiscal Responsibility Act and is under government’s target.” Our fiscal responsibility act allows us to move up to 35 per cent but our idea is to keep it at 30 per cent and below. 

Papua New Guinea and Australia have signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the Pacific Labour Scheme in Jakarta, Indonesia yesterday.

PNG was represented by Foreign Affairs Minister, Rimbink Pato, and Australia by Minister Marise Payne.

The proposed Foreign Investment Regulatory Authority Act looks to have been withdrawn, according to Papua New Guinea’s two largest business chambers.

 They say the Minister for Commerce and Industry, Wera Mori, has committed instead to look at amending the Investment Promotion Act.  
 
The Port Moresby Chamber of Commerce and Industry (POMCCI) said in a statement that its representatives had ‘made representations’ to have the Foreign Investment Regulatory Authority Act (FIRA) reconsidered.  

Fiji has banned the personal importation of pork and pork related products from Australia and New Zealand.

This is due to the spread of the African Swine Flu that kills pigs.

Fiji is currently free of the disease.

A Biosecurity of Fiji alert has tied the spread of the ASF to the Chinese New Year.

“As per Chinese calendar this is the Year of the Pig 2019, which leads to massive movement of human, swine populations and products and thus poses a high-risk period for the transboundary spread of the disease. Transmission of the disease is strongly linked to the movement of domestic and wild pigs, as well as pork products,” states the BAF alert.

The country’s rating in the 2019 Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) report has improved to 108 from 109 last year, according to the 2019 World Bank annual ratings.
Investment Promotion Authority (IPA), in its January Opportunity newsletter, said this was due to reforms in the areas of starting a business, paying taxes, getting credit and getting electricity compared with 190 other countries.

The new head of mining company Barrick Gold says it wants to strengthen its partnership with the Papua New Guinea government and the local community at Porgera.

Chief Executive Officer Mark Bristow visited PNG for four days recently and met with central and provincial government representatives as well as the Porgera Landowners Association.