Papua New Guinea

PSDI is working with the Government of Papua New Guinea to help make PNG a safer, more productive, easier, and more inclusive place to do business.

PSDI is working with the Government of Papua New Guinea to:

• Increase the availability of private sector credit by supporting the utilization of the secured transactions framework established in 2015, and advising on the introduction of alternative capital-raising platforms;

• Promote entrepreneurship and foreign direct investment, particularly through providing ongoing assistance and advice to PNG’s Investment Promotion Authority;

• Improve the efficiency and transparency of state-owned enterprises, by enabling public-private partnership transactions, developing a Community Service Obligation Policy for SOEs, and including PNG in PSDI’s Finding Balance SOE benchmarking studies;

• Develop the technical and cross-cutting capacity of PNG’s Independent Consumer and Competition Commission;

• Increase access to finance and financial services, by supporting the development of MiCash (a mobile phone linked bank account) and funding the design of the Microfinance Expansion Project (MEP); and

• Remove barriers to women’s participation in the formal economy through pilot initiatives helping businesswomen enter the formal economy and helping women professionals reach leadership positions.

Resources and Spending

PSDI’s activities in Papua New Guinea (PNG) have rapidly expanded since 2015 due to an additional $8.08 million in funding provided for Phase III by the Government of Australia. Similar additional funding for PNG has been again committed by the Government of Australia for PSDI Phase IV. These funds are being used to support expanded requests from the Government of Papua New Guinea to improve the enabling business environment across all of PSDI’s work areas: financing growth, business law reform, competition and consumer protection, further support for reforming state-owned enterprises (SOEs), implementing the public-private partnership (PPP) framework, and mainstreaming economic empowerment of women into PSDI projects.

A PSDI coordinator has been based at the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Papua New Guinea Resident Mission since January 2010. The expansion of PSDI’s program in PNG has necessitated the engagement of an additional coordinator since November 2016. The coordinators promote effective private sector development policies and practices through dialogue with the government and other stakeholders and support the implementation of PSDI initiatives.

On this website, $ refers to US dollars unless otherwise stated.

For detailed information on PSDI activities in Papua new Guinea, download the April 2020 PSDI Country Overview here.