Papua New Guinea currently has a limited infrastructure, largely due to the country's rugged terrain. Extreme weather, such as storms and floods, means that roads and other infrastructure deteriorate quickly. Political disputes and corruption, leading to unnecessary infrastructure and the diversion of money away from useful projects, also contributes to the problem. Papua New Guinea has 19,600 kilometers (12,179 miles) of roads, of which only 686 kilometers (426 miles) are paved (approximately 3.5 percent of the total). The main ports are at Port Moresby, Lae, Madang, and Rabaul. There are 492 airports, but only 19 have paved runways. The national air carrier is Air Niugini, which flies domestically as well as to Australia, several Asian countries, and the Solomon Islands. There is no rail system in the country.
About 70 percent of Papua New Guinea's electricity comes from fossil fuels, with hydroelectric power providing the remaining 30 percent. The total electricity consumption in 1998 was 1.618 billion kilowatt hours (kWh).
Telecommunication systems in the country are generally adequate. Papua New Guinea had 44,000 telephone mainlines in use in 1995, and has recently established a cellular telephone network in several areas. By 1997,
Communications | |||||||||
Country | Newspapers | Radios | TV Sets a | Cable subscribers a | Mobile Phones a | Fax Machines a | Personal Computers a | Internet Hosts b | Internet Users b |
1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1998 | 1998 | 1998 | 1998 | 1999 | 1999 | |
Papua New Guinea | 15 | 97 | 24 | N/A | 1 | N/A | N/A | 0.49 | 2 |
United States | 215 | 2,146 | 847 | 244.3 | 256 | 78.4 | 458.6 | 1,508.77 | 74,100 |
Australia | 293 | 1,376 | 639 | 43.6 | 286 | 48.6 | 411.6 | 477.85 | 6,000 |
Indonesia | 24 | 156 | 136 | N/A | 5 | 0.9 | 8.2 | 0.76 | 900 |
a Data are from International Telecommunication Union, World Telecommunication Development Report 1999 and are per 1,000 people. | |||||||||
b Data are from the Internet Software Consortium ( http://www.isc.org ) and are per 10,000 people. | |||||||||
SOURCE: World Bank. World Development Indicators 2000. |
there were 3,053 mobile cellular subscribers. In 1999, the country had 2 Internet service providers.