Economy

Imports
$395 million (2022). Refined Petroleum ($73.9M), Passenger and Cargo Ships ($19.9M), Poultry Meat ($9.55M), Broadcasting Equipment ($9.51M), and Delivery Trucks ($9.2M), importing mostly from China ($95.9M), Australia ($58.5M), Malaysia ($49M), New Zealand ($34.5M), and Fiji ($31.3M).

Ease of doing business
The ease of conducting business is medium (rated 61.1 out of 100) ranked 15th out of 25 East Asian and Pacific countries, ranked 107th out of 190 countries worldwide (2024, World Bank).

Exports
$205 million (2022). Non-fillet Frozen Fish ($152M), Perfume Plants ($18.7M), Fish Fillets ($10M), Copra ($8.91M), and Molluscs ($5.62M), exporting mostly to Thailand ($86.1M), Japan ($55.5M), South Korea ($14.1M), Philippines ($12.9M), and China ($10.1M).

Economic freedom
‘Moderately free’ (62.2 out of 100) ranked 12th out of 39 Asian-Pacific countries, ranked 65th out of 184 countries worldwide (2024, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal).

Media

Media language
French, English

Information channels
The single TV channel on Vanuatu was established with the help of Radio France Overseas (RFO) and broadcasts in French and English. Radio Vanuatu runs a shortwave and mediumwave (AM) service, as well as local commercial FM stations.
BBC World Service (99 MHz), Radio Australia, Radio France Internationale and China Radio International are available on FM.
There is a government newspaper, Vanuatu Weekly, and a handful of privately-owned papers.

The press

Vanuatu Weekly – state-owned
Nasara – private weekly
Vanuatu Daily Post – published Monday-Saturday
L’Hebdo Du Vanuatu – French-language, from publisher of Daily Post
The Vanuatu Independent – private weekly
Port Vila Presse – private weekly
Ni-Vanuatu – private weekly

Television

Television Blong Vanuatu – operated by state-owned Vanuatu Broadcasting and Television Corporation (VBTC)

Radio

Radio Vanuatu – operated by state-owned VBTC
Capital FM 107 – private, Port Vila
Laef FM – Christian, Port Vila

Internet Data

Internet users
69.9% penetration, 236.5 thousand

Share of web traffic by device
82.33% mobile phones, 16.62% computers (laptops and desktops), 1.05% tablet devices.

Median speed of fixed Internet connection
12.35 mbps

Mobile connection as a percentage of total population: 77%

Percentage of mobile connections that are broadband (3G-5G): 94.6%

Most popular web search engines
Google (90.21%), Bing (8.02%), Yahoo! (0.9%), DuckDuckGo (0.28%), Baidu (0.21%), other (0.37%).

Most used social media
Facebook (99.64%), Pinterest (0.13%), Twitter (0.11%), Instagram (0.05%), YouTube (0.05%), Reddit (0.01%), LinkedIn (0.01%), other (0.2%).

Social statistics

Life expectancy
70 years (2022)

CO2 emissions
0.71 metric tons per capita

Corruption perceptions Index
Vanuatu scored 48 out of 100, ranked 60th out 180 countries worldwide.

Current education expenditure
99.4% of total expenditure in public institutions

Current health expenditure
4.37% of GDP (2021)