The Hon James Marape MP, Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, speaks exclusively with Publishing Director of Business Advantage International, Andrew Wilkins, about PNG’s next decade of economic growth, which he describes as potentially the most exciting in the nation’s history.

In the interview, Prime Minister James Marape says Papua New Guineans had “kept our heads above water” through four challenging years which have featured COVID-19 disruptions and the inflationary effects of Russia’s war in Ukraine, while his government has been working to deliver new resources investment.

“In those four years we have not been silent, we’ve been working with our investors,” Marape says, in a video interview conducted on the sidelines of the PNG Resources and Energy Investment Conference in Sydney late last year.

Most of that work, he said, had focused on five crucial projects – the Papua LNG, P’nyang, Pasca A gas projects , and mining operations at Porgera and Wafi-Golpu – which Marape says will all mature in 2024, laying the foundation for PNG’s next big investment wave.

His government, he says, has tried to strike a balance between the urgent need to raise wages and the standard of living for Papua New Guineans, while also ensuring that resource projects in the country will be profitable enough to attract investment, adding that companies “are not charities, they need to make profit for their shareholders”.

Marape describes that effort as “a work in progress”, and concedes there is still work to be done on environmental and social issues. But, he says there are more investors than ever focused on the economic potential of PNG, which he sees as a sign of faith in the country’s economy, laws and structure of government.

Click on the video above to watch the full interview.