Mongolia: the (other) land of the unexpected

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A small nation with vast reserves of natural resources… sustained and stellar GDP growth despite a challenging operating environment… tension between foreign investors and those in the local population who believe their birthright is being sold off too cheaply… a copper and gold mine large enough to contribute a third of the nation’s GDP.

People moves: New Australia Pacific Secretary/ANZ international head departs

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Australia gets a new Parliamentary Secretary for the Pacific while ANZ loses its head of international banking.

Papua New Guinea Government sets challenge for business

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POMCCI’s Chief Executive David Conn identifies the key messages for the local business community from recent speeches from Peter O’Neill & ANZ’s Mike Smith

Around the world: sorcery killings/ANZ CEO/Westpac in Asia/BHP

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Sorcery killing The killing of a young woman accused of witchcraft has brought PNG to the attention of the international media for the wrong reasons in the past week, with the United Nations and Amnesty International speaking out on the issue. Writing in The Australian (9 Feb) Rowan Callick compared the case to the widely-publicised […]

How will PNG’s and the Pacific’s economy fare in 2013?

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Business Advantage PNG spoke with the region’s three most senior bankers to get their thoughts on the year ahead. ‘There will be some slowness in the year ahead based on global economic factors, but on the whole I’m reasonably positive,’ says ANZ’s CEO Pacific, Vishnu Mohan (pictured below). ‘I think the good news for the […]

People moves: executive moves and changes relevant to Papua New Guinea

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Mohan new Pacific CEO at ANZ Vishnu Mohan, ANZ’s former CEO PNG & Pacific North West Region, who relocated to Fiji earlier this year, is now head of the bank’s Pacific operations, which span 12 countries. ANZ announced in late October that Mohan would take over as CEO Pacific from 1 November 2012, in addition […]

Perspectives on Papua New Guinea

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Business leaders provide their own take on opportunities in PNG’s economy. Greg Pawson, General Manager Pacific Banking, Westpac ‘Papua New Guinea is a very important market for us. We employ more than 400 staff across our PNG business. We have sixteen branches and we’re expanding, with new business centres in Lae and Port Moresby. We’re about to relocate our main […]

PNG spearheads regional growth

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Papua New Guinea is expected to remain the standout economy in the Pacific over the coming year, with its success having a knock-on effect on neighbouring Solomon Islands. Business Advantage summarises the outlook for the region’s larger economies. Unsurprisingly, the region’s fastest-growing economies are those whose economies are based around exporting natural resources, especially to Asia. ‘In Papua New Guinea […]

Reaching out to the unbanked

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Papua New Guinea’s strong financial services sector is becoming ever more sophisticated in servicing both the mass-market and premium ends of the market. ‘PNG continues to have a very, very strong banking sector. We are very lucky here to have the banks that we do. Investors want that, and they often don’t expect that there’s […]

Papua New Guinea’s capital markets

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After strong performances in 2009 and 2010, the Port Moresby Stock Exchange (POMSoX) experienced a tough 2011, as did many bourses around the world. The Kina Securities Index, which measures the health of PNG’s stock exchange, reported a 22.21% fall in 2011, but this fall should be seen in context. The region’s major exchanges—the Nikkei […]