Prime Minister Hon. James Marape has applauded PNG Customs for recording high growth rates over the past five years.

Prime Minister Marape, while commenting on PNG Customs performance re- port for May 2024, said despite the tough economic times facing the country, PNG Customs is doing exceptionally well.

“PNG Customs has recorded K3.9 billion in revenue collections for last year (2023), which is the highest under any government,” said PM Marape.

He added that this was a significant increase of K672.08 million or 21 percent when compared with 2019, the first year of his government.

Customs has collected K3.34 billion per year over the last four years, recording an average growth rate of 12 percent per year. Due to the COVID-19 pan- demic, the revenue collections for 2020 were slightly lower than those collected in 2019.

This year’s available data, covering four months including April, indicates a positive growth for 2024. Customs has, by April, recorded revenue collections at K1.2 billion, indicating another positive growth.

PNG Customs acknowledged the Marape Government’s strong and increasing support to strengthen its compliance enforcement, which has led to improvement in compliance and rise in revenue collection.

With the continuing increase in the revenue collections, PNG Customs said it is optimistic that it would meet the Government’s projections for 2024 which is K4.25 billion.

Prime Minister Marape thanked Customs Chief Commissioner David Towe and his staff for the good work, adding that his government would continue sup- porting the agency into the future.