Bank of China Rep office welcomed

The momentous occasion was also attended by Bank of China Chairman, Ge Haijiao, and Chinese Ambassador to PNG, Zeng Fanhua. Members of parliament and the private sector were also there in support.

Marape commended and welcomed the Bank of China for stepping into developing economies like PNG because they only have offices in bigger economies like Australian and New Zealand.

“Today our economy is K130 billion, we are ambitious that within the next 7 years as we come out of this decade we want to go to a K200 billion economy and that is the focus of this government and focus of my generation of leaders,” he said.

PM Marape said that they are working extremely hard to ensure that they go past the K200 billion economy trestle and at a level where the economy will be able to sustain the population of more than 10 billion people.

“Let me assure you your coming into our country that is on the verge of our next phase of the important boom. This boom that will bring us to a middle income earning nation at the very earliest and all of us executive government, the parliament, our constitutional offices, independent organizations like the Central Bank and every one of us are working to ensure we reach this important milestone of growth economy,” stated PM Marape.

He added that PNG’s economy has immediate need for more than one or two banks. The government is working towards attracting investors into that market and reform the development bank into a commercial bank.

“We have space to move into other products like lending to state owned enterprise, lending to private-public partnership programs, lending to SMEs and lending to other contracts. I encourage you to look into financial products, while you maintain your traditional products, I realized that you have a broad range of product capabilities. May you tailor a product for PNG Market that complements our endeavour to be a stronger economy,” Marape added.