Bougainville Copper Ltd says Panguna mine could be operational by 2025-26, Foreign exchange injection this week, and Tolukuma gold mine may restart by year’s end. Your weekly digest of the latest business news.
foreign exchange
Businesses in Papua New Guinea must have strategies to manage the shortage of foreign currency, says Stephen Massa, Port Moresby Managing Partner of the law firm Dentons. He looks at some approaches but warns that businesses must pay attention to their legal obligations.
Copper and cocoa prices have eased sharply over the last month, while palm oil prices have surged. Gas and oil prices are largely unchanged and precious metals prices have eased. Business Advantage PNG’s monthly overview of commodity and financial markets.
The governor of the Bank of Papua New Guinea, Loi Bakani, says that the shortage of foreign exchange is ‘an issue based on supply and demand of foreign currency for kina.’ One way to increase demand for a nation’s currency is to modernise the bond markets. A World Bank report has looked at some options.
Papua New Guinea’s top two bankers, Loi Bakani, Governor of the Bank of Papua New Guinea and Robin Fleming, Chief Executive of Bank South Pacific, have asserted that the kina is not ‘controlled’. The shortage of foreign exchange is rather due to supply demand imbalances—but there is light at the end of the tunnel.
The Papua New Guinea authorities should allow the currency to fall to its market level to make foreign bond raisings less risky says economist Rohan Fox. He tells Business Advantage PNG that domestic banks are reaching the limits of their capacity to take on government debt, which is increasing the pressure to raise capital internationally.
Moody’s recently downgraded its sovereign rating on Papua New Guinea to B2 from B1. But Christian de Guzman, a Senior Analyst in the Sovereign Risk Group for Moody’s Singapore tells Business Advantage PNG that the agency is ‘quite confident’ about the overall economy’s prospects over the medium-term.
The Governor of the Bank of Papua New Guinea, Loi Bakani, told this week’s Australia–Papua New Guinea Business Forum in Cairns that the bank is ‘determined’ to obtain more foreign currency ‘as soon as possible’ to address the backlog in foreign exchange demand. However, he criticised claims that PNG’s foreign exchange problem could be solved by allowing a free float of the kina, reports David James.
The kina has fallen in value this year, but Papua New Guinea’s dependence on commodity exports means that it can be expected to fall further, says Rohan Fox, Lecturer and Research Fellow at the University of Papua New Guinea’s Division of Economics. He tells Business Advantage PNG that the country faces a difficult task managing the impact of sharp fluctuations in commodity prices.
Papua New Guinea’s currency, the kina, has fallen over the last year; many are predicting it will go lower. Business Advantage PNG talks exclusively to two analysts about where the currency is headed and how it will affect business conditions.