Economy

Imports
$5.48 billion (2022).  Refined Petroleum ($858M), Rice ($160M), Excavation Machinery ($123M), Delivery Trucks ($114M), and Broadcasting Equipment ($104M), importing mostly from China ($1.43B), Australia ($1.27B), Singapore ($857M), Malaysia ($508M), and Indonesia ($245M).

Ease of doing business
Ease of conducting business is low (rated 59.8 out of 100). Ranked 16th out of 25 East Asia & Pacific countries. Ranked 120th out of 190 countries worldwide (2020, World Bank).

Exports
$15.4 billion (2022). Petroleum Gas ($7.71B), Gold ($1.74B), Palm Oil ($1.03B), Crude Petroleum ($934M), and Copper Ore ($826M), exporting mostly to Japan ($4.03B), China ($3.44B), Australia ($1.74B), South Korea ($1.48B), and Chinese Taipei ($1.46B).

Economic freedom
‘Mostly not free’ (rated 49.4 out of 100). Ranked 33rd out of 39 Asia-Pacific region. Ranked 148th out of 186 countries worldwide (2024, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal).

Main local online stores
Amazon.com, Ebay.com.au and Aliexpress.com

Media

Media language
English

Information channels
Radio is important in Papua New Guinea, which has scattered, isolated settlements and low levels of literacy. The government operates a national network and provincial stations. “The media sector is relatively underdeveloped and struggles to inform the country’s inhabitants, who speak at least 80 different languages,” says Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Journalists can face intimidation, direct threats, censorship, lawsuits and bribery attempts as well as direct interference. In 2022, the entire EMTV newsroom was fired after walking out in response to a decision to suspend its head of news and current affairs, “for ‘insubordination’ – running stories that annoyed a government minister,” says RSF. Television coverage is limited mainly to Port Moresby and the provincial capitals. 
The country’s two daily newspapers are foreign-owned. The private press, including weeklies and monthlies, reports on corruption and other sensitive matters. The Australian Broadcasting Cooperation (ABC) is the only foreign news organisation to have a permanent base in the capital, Port Moresby.

The press

The National 
The Post-Courier

Television

EMTV – commercial

Radio

National Broadcasting Corporation – state-run
FM100 – private, commercial 
Nau FM – private, commercial

Internet Data

Internet users
27% penetration, 2.81 million.

Share of web traffic by device
68.91% mobile phones, 29.53% computers (laptops and desktops), 1.56% tablet devices.

Median speed of mobile Internet connection
19.95 Mbps

Median speed of fixed Internet connection
13.35 Mbps

Mobile connection as a percentage of total population: 36.9%

Percentage of mobile connections that are broadband (3G-5G): 77.6%

Most popular web search engines
Google (89.55%), Bing (9.13%), Yahoo! (0.46%), DuckduckGo (0.23%), Baidu (0.23%), YANDEX (0.11%).

Most used social media
Facebook (90.96%), Pinterest (3.27%), YouTube (3.12%), Twitter (1.01%), Instagram (1%), LinkedIN (0.37%).

Social statistics

Life expectancy
66 yrs (2022)

Corruption perceptions Index
Papua New Guinea scored 29 out of 100, ranked 133 out of 180 countries worldwide (2023).

Current health expenditure
2.32% of GDP (2021).

CO2 emissions
0.6 metric tons per capita (2020).

Corruption perceptions Index
Papua New Guinea scored 17 out of 100, ranked 171 out 180 countries worldwide.

Current health expenditure
3.22% of GDP

CO2 emissions
0.3 metric tons per capita