2023 in Reflection

The brutality of the attack, and hostage taking, and subsequent Israeli response and humanitarian crisis, have left both sides scarred and subject to international condemnation and calls for restraint. [...] Late in the year the Fed started rolling back its interest rates and potentially weakening the allure of the US dollar, which has strengthened against most currencies, including the kina and the Australian dollar over the past two years. [...] The Pacific, and particularly PNG, slipped out of the relative shadows and moved somewhere into the limelight in 2023, with a succession of international leaders making their way to Pacific capitals, and especially Port Moresby, from the US, East , South and South East Asia, Europe and the region itself. [...] While economic growth was only about half the forecast in 2023, the restoration of Porgera at the end of the year, and the prospective financing and early construction phase for at least one major further resource project (Papua LNG) and possibly a second (Wafi-Golpu copper/gold) commencing in late 2024, and a succession of subsequent projects, provide more optimistic grounds for sustained economi. [...] The challenge of the dual economy, or the resource curse remains prominent in PNG, with the need to safeguard the prospects of the other sectors, and the importance for Government not lose fiscal control again, as it did in the 1990s and 2010s, frittering money away on unsustainable projects and with weak oversight, even before the revenue has materialized.