Minister for Treasury, Ian Ling-Stuckey, visited the Bank of PNG.
Ling-Stuckey was at BPNG on Monday to witness the swearing in of the new Bank of PNG board members.
The new members are acting Governor, Benny Popoitai, David Toua, Ulato Avei, James Gore, Des Yaninen and Richard Kuna.
In its first business of the day, the new board elected David Toua as its interim chairman.
During the event, the Minister said the current review was timely, given that good governance in most countries suggest that laws should generally be reviewed after ten years, not twenty two years, as was the current case.
“I was part of the government during the first transformative amendments of the Central Banking Act 2000 and here we are, trying to improve on that again,” Ling-Stuckey stated.
He said the introduction of the growth agenda as a primary objective of the BPNG, on top of its main responsibility to ensure price stability, may from time to time, have competing interests.
“The Government is committed to supporting an appropriate balance,” he outlined.
Meantime, the Acting Governor pointed out that greater collaboration between the BPNG and central agencies of government, especially the treasury, was needed to achieve greater synergy between fiscal and monetary policy.
Popoitai welcomed the current reform being pursued by the government and committed the bank to supporting the second phase of the work of the Independent Advisory Committee.
(Members of the new BPNG board that were sworn in on Monday, witnessed by Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey)