About PNG

Capital City

Port Moresby

Time zone

GMT + 10 hrs

Population

Mainland of Papua New Guinea (PNG), together with its six hundred other islands (463,000 square kilometers) had a population of approximately 6.1 million in 2007 and continues to grow 2.7 percent per annum.

Language

English, Tok Pisin (Pidgin), and Motu (the lingua franca of the Papuan region) are the official languages of PNG, however there are over seven hundred language groups, reflecting the diverse origins of the PNG people.

Business growth

PNG’s economy is increasingly diversified, with key productive sectors including mining and petroleum, agriculture, forestry, fisheries and manufacturing. The country also has a small but growing tourism sector.

Even without its major new resources projects, PNG’s domestic economy continues to grow, putting pressure on infrastructure and driving a boom in building and constructions, which in turn is transforming the cityscapes of the capital Port Moresby and second city, Lae.

Major industrial areas include: Mining, crude oil, petroleum, refining, copra crushing, palm oil, plywood and wood chip production, construction, fisheries, tourism.

Export: Oil, gold, copper, ore, logs, palm oil, coffee, cocoa, seafood

Export and Import Markets: Australia, Japan, China

Local living

The spectrum of Papua New Guinean society now ranges from traditional village-based life, dependent on subsistence and small cash-crop agriculture, to modern urban life in the main cities of Port Moresby (capital), Lae, Madang, Wewak, Goroka, Mt Hagen, and Rabaul. Some 85 per cent of the population directly derives their livelihood from farming, and 15 per cent of the populations live in urban areas. It is estimated that the population is growing at a rate of approximately 2.7 per cent per annum.

Trobiand Islanders carve beautiful walking sticks, stools and tables, often inlaid with mother of pearl. Shell jewelry is very popular in the coastal towns, particularly Madang and Rabaul.

Most of PNG’s art has a spiritual and ceremonial meaning, which plays an important role in the lives of the villages. Ritual carvings and masks still play an important part in their ceremonies, initiation rites and feasts.

Activities

PNG is full of on interesting and diverse activities, such as trekking remote jungles, cruising the mighty Sepik River, surfing the waves in New Ireland, fishing around the fjords of Tufi and diving the coral reef coastline.

PNG is also known for the Kokoda Track, where in July 1942 Australia had just two Militia brigades in Port Moresby, the administrative centre of Papua. In that month the Japanese landed troops at Buna and Gona on the Papuan north coast and in the following month they landed another force at Milne Bay.

The Kokoda Track is one of the World’s great treks, spanning 96kms from start to finish and surrounded by impenetrable jungle, raging rivers that have cut deep into the brooding mountains and then plunge into ragged, tortuous valleys that crisscross the track.

Food

Common produce and consumed items of the locals include:

Seafood, chicken, yams, sweet potato, local spinach, rice, taro, tapioca, curry nuts, local chestnuts, fern leaf, watermelon, paw paw, pineapple, mangos, Lau Lau (a pink fruit that is much like a bitter apple), pamelo (large orange like fruit).

Other delicacies include:

Bat, Turtle and Shark

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