BY MELISHA YAFOI
The trade relationship between Japan and Papua New Guinea has been impacted in the first six months of 2020 with numbers dwindling in April.
An official from the Embassy of Japan to Papua New Guinea told the Post-Courier that the impacts were experienced before the World Health Organisation declared pandemic, Coronavirus (Covid-19).
The official said despite the exports from Japan to PNG saw an increase of 26 per cent that is JPY 7.1billion (K229.7million) it recorded a decrease in May.
“The export was growing till March 2020 but then slowed down in April, and in May it recorded the decrease of 29 per cent compared with the amount in May last year,” the official said.
The main export items are automobiles (65per cent), tires and rubbers (14per cent).
This statistics have also shown the drop of the import volume from Japan.
Japan’s total import value to PNG from January to May 2020 is JPY95.5billion (K3billion).
The official said compared to the same period in 2019, a loss of 26 per cent has been recorded.
“The decreasing trend had begun before the start of the Covid-19 impact.
The decreased demand for crude oil and lower prices of LNG, which occupies 76 per cent of the total import from PNG, might have had remarkably negative impacts since the beginning of 2020,” official said.
“Japan’s export amount still exceeds the import from PNG for the period from January to May 2020, but the import amount decreased by JPY35.7 billion (K1.1billion) for this period.”
The official added that in recent years, the LNG import from PNG has been consistently around 5per cent of the total import of LNG to Japan from overseas.
However, the total amount of import itself decreased in 2019 by 7per cent, compared with the amount of import in 2018.
“The decreasing trend will continue in the first half of 2020, and the impact of the new coronavirus would cause further decrease due to the smaller demand.”