Asia Economy

With one of the world’s largest endowments of hydrocarbons reserves relative to the size of its population, Brunei Darussalam has naturally built its economy around the production and export of oil and gas. However, like many of the world’s traditional oil and gas producers, the Sultanate now faces the challenge of maturing fields. The non-energy private sector accounted for 23.3% of GDP in...

This chapter features useful information for visitors to Papua New Guinea, including a suggested hotels listing, contact information for government ministries, business associations, foreign missions and other important resources, as well as facts about languages, visas, etiquette and other tips. It also includes a features piece about coral conservation efforts in the waters of PNG.

Buoyed by high commodity export revenues and, since 2009 the development of the Papua New Guinea Liquefied Natural Gas project, GDP growth has remained above 6% since 2007, reaching 8.9% in 2011 and 8.1% in 2012. A heavyweight among the Pacific Island states, PNG, together with Fiji, accounted for 80% of regional GDP in 2013, as per UN figures. Agriculture, fisheries and forestry made up the...

Although lower international commodity prices are impacting the pipeline of projects in the traditionally dominant mining sector, Papua New Guinea’s emergence as a major liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter in 2014 has attracted global attention, with a second landmark LNG project moving towards a final investment decision in 2016. Construction of the PNG LNG project has increased the country’...

Some 80% of Papua New Guinea’s population lives in rural areas, which includes huge rain forests, rugged mountains and steep river valleys. Indeed, the difficulty of the terrain is a major reason why there are some 850 different native languages in the country, as clans and tribes have inhabited territories that are often close, but largely inaccessible, to each other. Comprising the eastern...