INSIDE VIEW
A tale of two cities The executives of Papua New Guinea’s two largest business chambers, in Port Moresby and Lae, reflect on their cities’ progress over the past decade.
DAVID CONN CEO, Port Moresby Chamber of Commerce & Industry
In the nation’s capital, it’s just exponential change. It’s very, very heartening to see. Port Moresby has really grown up in the last 10 years, and the infrastructure development continues apace. If you compare it with 10 years ago, I think it’s shaken off the mantle of being a dangerous place. I mean more and more people are coming in and saying: ‘What’s the fuss? This is a vibrant city in a developing country.’
With law and order moving back down the scale, it’s being replaced by new issues. The energy situation has become critical, and in many ways that was inevitable. When you see such exponential growth in the city, the infrastructure— power, water, sewerage, drainage—is all creaking and groaning. But there are many encouraging things in the energy sector coming, so Moresby is heading to be very well covered in that regard—it’s going to be a lot better for business as well. It’s all happening in Port Moresby. I visited Vision City, a shopping mall that would be the measure of any shopping mall in Asia, sitting under a new 433-room hotel—the Stanley. There are six new restaurants opening up in Steamships’ Harbourside development. You have one of the most magnificent harbours in the world that you’re sitting on. You just you need to drive around Port Moresby to see what is happening. People are gentrifying: old fibro shacks have come down and people are building half a dozen units on the block of land. New road infrastructure is opening up massive areas of real estate on the fringes of the city, and you know many of us thought that a lot of these traditional settlements would never go, and that’s been proven wrong. I like to see development translating to a better standard of living for people. I think it’s positive that the port is moving to the northern side of the harbour. It’s going to be well connected by a new road. I would like to see some consideration given to the spin-offs in that economic development corridor around the harbour. There’s huge potential there. I’d like to see Hanuabada, Tatana Island, Baruni—places sitting right on the fringes of the nation’s capital—developing as well. I hope for a better quality of life for everybody in Port Moresby.
PNG’s share market Heavily-weighted as it is with duallisted mining and petroleum stocks, the overall value of the Papua New Guinea bourse, the Port Moresby Stock Exchange (POMSoX) fell during 2015. Globally, resources stocks followed the pattern of 2014 and fell significantly, along with falling global oil and mineral prices. PNG’s main mark index, the Kina Securities Index (KSI), which lists 18 companies, closed at 3,417.51 points, falling 77.37 points or 2.1 % during the year. The exchange’s weighted market capitalisation is K51.5 billion (US$19.74 billion), slightly lower than
the end of 2014 (K53.3 billion or US$ 20.1 billion). There were three major changes on POMSoX during 2015. Kina Securities became one of the first dual-listed Papua New Guinea companies in July 2015. It raised A$97 million (K210million) on listing on both POMSoX and Australia’s ASX, and had a market cap of $164 million (K356 million) at the start of 2016. Junior miner Marengo Mining delisted in 2015, and is now only tradeable on the Toronto Stock Exchange, while New Britain Palm Oil delisted after its takeover by Malaysia’s 12 BUSINESS ADVANTAGE PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Sime Darby in late February 2015. In June 2015, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill announced the Government would introduce legislation to ensure the independence of the Securities Commission of Papua New Guinea, and open the Port Moresby Stock Exchange to greater competition. He added that the Securities Commission would be given an independent organisational and administrative structure, to enable it to perform its regulatory functions by providing oversight of the Papua New Guinea Capital Market, including oversight of share trading.