Welcome to the first Newsletter for 2015 and I hope the festive season was a good one and did not stress you out too much. The New Year definitely did not start off on a good note, with the dreadful killing of Mrs Moana Pisimi and murder of Tan Tiam Teng. Moana was the wife of Thomas Pisimi the Managing Director of our member R & Sons Construction Company. For those who don’t know, R

Telecommunications wholesaler PNG DataCo Limited has been set up as part of a restructure of Papua New Guinea’s telecommunications industry. Business Advantage PNG discusses its critical role with its Chairman Reuben Kautu, an entrepreneur with a strong background of commercial and strategic management, developed during roles with BP, ExxonMobil and, more recently, Telikom PNG’s subsidiary Kalang Advertising Limited. Business Advantage PNG (BAPNG): What is the role of PNG DataCo? Reuben Kautu (RK): DataCo is an

As Papua New Guinea enters 2015, changes in the global economy are likely to present major challenges, while local investment in infrastructure continues. Business Advantage PNG looks ahead to consider what 2015 may bring business. In his comments about the September 2014 Quarterly Economic Bulletin last week, Loi M Banaki, Governor of the country’s central bank, warned of inflationary pressures due to a depreciating kina (which has depreciated by 20.4 percent from its high of

From modest beginnings, Papua’s New Guinea’s largest non-bank financial services company, the Kina Group, has come a long way. Chief Executive Officer Syd Yates explains the Kina vision to Business Advantage PNG. Since it started as Kina Securities, a small funds administrator and stockbroker, some 17 years ago, the Kina Group has grown into a model diversified financial services group in Papua New Guinea. Today, Kina is also a funds manager with over K4.7 billion

Despite much that is good in the 2015 Budget, the Papua New Guinea government’s medium-term fiscal plans are a concern, writes Paul Flanagan, former senior executive in the Australian Treasury, and advisor to the PNG Treasury from 2011 to 2013. Papua New Guinea is facing growing economic problems, with foreign exchange controls hurting businesses and printing money possibly starting inflationary pressures, so getting fiscal policy right in this budget was absolutely vital for the country’s

Pacific leaders have been the recipients of largesse from India’s Prime Minister and China’s President, who met in Fiji last week. Meanwhile, a new ANZ report details the increasingly close links between China’s aid and its investment in the Pacific. China’s President Xi Jinping met with the leaders of Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, Micronesia, Cook Islands and Niue on the first state visit to Fiji by a Chinese leader. It followed the

Air Niugini is looking to expand its services to other Melanesian countries from 2015, and possibly China in coming years. The plans follow the launch of its new low-cost domestic subsidiary, Link PNG, which has implications for other state-owned enterprises. Air Niugini’s chairman Sir Frederick Reiher made the announcement of more international flights, as he handed over a K100,000 sponsorship cheque for the Melanesian Spearhead Group Trade and Investment Roadshow and Fair, (which will be