Rice price shocks and household welfare in Papua New Guinea

Rice prices in international markets rose sharply between December 2019 and May 2020, increasing, for example, by 25 percent in Thailand and 30 percent in Vietnam. Given that essentially all of the rice supply for Papua New Guinea (PNG) comes from rice imports, the domestic price of rice in PNG is likely to rise substantially in coming months. Although PNG’s food economy is dominated by domestically produced starchy staples, rice imports have almost doubled from 167,000 tons annually in 2005 to an estimated 300,000 tons in 2020.