Prime Minister Hon. James Marape has acknowledged the World Bank for highlighting important steps to be taken by the Papua New Guinea Government to grow its economy during a high-level seminar in Mt Hagen, Western Highlands, on Tuesday, April 30, 2024.

He made the acknowledgment when closing the seminar on ‘Doubling the PNG Economy Within a Decade to Create One Million Jobs – What It Will Take’.

Prime Minister Marape said hearing the weaknesses in the progress made by the government and key economic sectors from World Bank experts is critical to the country.

He emphasised that the country’s focus under his leadership is to grow the economy to K200 billion at the earliest and to continue on growing it from there. The rationale is simple: A bigger economy sustains the development needs of our people and country.

The Prime Minister stressed to key economic ministers and departmental heads that the insights provided by the World Bank experts serve as a wake-up call.

“I want to call on our public officials, both elected and appointed to get out of our offices and see the hard life our rural people are facing,” he said.

“We have the transport and freight subsidy in the agriculture sector, the National Agriculture Plan, we have funding for education, we have clearly mapped our Medium-Term Development Plan, and all other programmes as mentioned by the World Bank officials but have been complacent and lacked the willpower to work to implement them for our people.”

Prime Minister Marape highlighted concerns raised by the business community and the World Bank on the ease of doing business in PNG, stressing that these concerns should be heeded to attract foreign direct investment.

He emphasised the urgency of addressing issues such as the lengthy government processes which takes at least eight months compared to just three months in other Pacific nations, as highlighted by the World Bank

“We must speed up,” Prime Minister Marape said.

“We must get back to work more and harder including ramping up on the focus to diversify the economy and creating more jobs.

“My government acknowledges the World Bank for continued programmes with government.

“Our systems are slow and cumbersome but the World Bank continues to be patient and work with us. We apologise for this sad status quo but commit to embrace all recommendations put . forward to grow our economy.

“Thank you, World Bank, for all your programmes that are running in PNG.

“We will certainly take on board your recommendations in your presentations at this seminar today.”