Papua New Guinea sets audacious goal to become 'richest black Christian nation'

The impoverished nation is the 153rd most developed country in the world, two spots above Syria

Papua New Guinea's new prime minister James Marape arrives to be sworn in as the new leader in Port Moresby on May 30, 2019. AFP

Papua New Guinea's new prime minister has an ambitious – cynics would say far-fetched – objective of turning one of the world's poorest countries into the "richest black nation" on Earth in just a decade.

If national economies were like football teams, then Papua New Guinea would be near the bottom of the table struggling to avoid a relegation dogfight.

Violent crime and corruption are endemic, reliable electricity is rare, and population centres sit like isolated city-states, surrounded by trackless jungle and mountain ridges that soar into the equatorial sky.

As rich as Papua New Guinea is in culture, language and beauty, according to the United Nations it is the 153rd most developed country in the world out of 189, doing slightly better than Syria and marginally worse than Myanmar.

Prime Minister James Marape wants to change that. He has promised that within a decade, his compatriots will live in "the richest black Christian nation" in the world.

That is not going to be easy. The current titleholder is the highly industrialised economy of Trinidad and Tobago, where the average resident earns around 833 per cent more than Papua New Guinea.

If the British territory of Bermuda were also included in the rankings, the task would be even more daunting.

Papua New Guinea's economy would have to grow at a world-beating rate of around 30 per cent per year, every year for the next ten years just to catch up.

"PNG has never experienced 30 per cent growth in the past; nor has any other country for that matter, at least not for any sustained period of time," said Maholopa Laveil, a lecturer in economics at the University of Papua New Guinea.

To reach his lofty goal, Mr Marape appears to be betting on a surge in gas revenues and more of that cash staying in the country.

He has hinted that he may look to renegotiate a massive liquefied natural gas contract with Total and Exxon Mobil that would double national production to better benefit the local economy.

He has also promised to stop the export of unprocessed hardwoods and tackle corruption.

But the strategy comes with risks.

The World Bank has warned that even before a second LNG project comes online, the economy has "become increasingly concentrated in petroleum and gas-related activities".

That, the bank warned, raises Papua New Guinea's vulnerability to the vagaries of international energy markets and natural disasters – like the 7.5 magnitude quake that froze production and stalled the economy in 2018.

Even the country's existing PNG LNG project – which started to flow in 2014 – has failed to live up to expectations.

It required a controversial public loan worth more than a billion Australian dollars (Dh2.5 billion) and helped national debt spike.

The project was forecast to increase GDP by over 97 per cent, but according to Paul Flanagan – a former Australian government official who runs the influential PNG Economics blog – the increase has been closer to six per cent.

"Overall, the PNG LNG project massively over-promised and then failed to deliver," one of his recent blog posts read. "For household disposable income, the prediction was an 84 per cent improvement. The outcome is a decline of 9 per cent."

Mr Flanagan believes that regardless of any energy boom, Mr Marape – a former finance minister – will need to undertake difficult currency and trade reforms if the country has any hope of growing sustainably.

"Time will tell if the new government will tackle such difficult political economy challenges, challenges that must be addressed to make PNG a much richer black Christian nation," he said.