Export Performance in Papua New Guinea, 1960 to 1999

Stochastic dominance analysis was used to assess export performance in Papua New Guinea from 1960 to 1999. A country with abundant natural resources, Papua New Guinea was able to experience significant growth in total export values throughout the final four decades of the 20th century, with each succeeding decade stochastically dominating the previous one. The expansion of mineral and energy exports from the early 1970s was the major source of this growth. The powerful influence of an expanding minerals and energy sector must nevertheless be of concern in that this sector and other non-agricultural resource sectors comprise mainly extractive or quasi-extractive industries given the production practices that currently exist. Little progress has been made in diversifying into secondary and tertiary exports. Furthermore, prospects for the mineral and energy sectors do not look bright, with a collapse of exploration and development in the mining industry (Duncan 2001:11). Growth also took place in agricultural export values during the study period. However, it was more modest than the growth in resource based non-agricultural exports and confined mainly to the 1960s and 1970s