Report by the WTO Secretariat

This is the third Trade Policy Review of Papua New Guinea (PNG). Its macroeconomic performance has been broadly satisfactory, with the economy growing at an annual average rate of 5.2% during 2010-18. Real GDP growth peaked at 15.4% in 2014 but decelerated to an estimated zero in 2018. The recent slowdown was attributed to low commodity prices, a major drought in 2017 and a big earthquake in February 2018 which also weakened PNG’s external position and created fiscal challenges.