CONSTRUCTION BOOM SHOULD BE MEASURED WITH CAUTION
BY ROD MITCHELL Ten years ago, PNG faced a very different development path, mired in the middle of a credit crunch, collapsed financial institutions and a low demand for major commodities. Sir Mekere Morauta taking over the reigns as prime minister from the haphazard Bill Skate, quickly drove a major reform agenda that saw the liberation and repair of the financial sector, which since has become a well documented international case study of successful reform. These reforms combined with an uptake in commodity prices from 2002 have underpinned the PNG economy over the last six to seven years. The revenues collected from a stable economy with growing resource and commodity income, led to bankable surpluses which helped underpin the PNG economy through the global financial crisis. We mention the reforms of early 2000 for another reason. For without those reforms of stability and independence of the financial system, we would not have had the capital formation that has allowed for such a m