The economy has recovered to pre-COVID level but remains below its pre-COVID trajectory. The COVID-19crisis led to an economic contraction in 2020-21 before recovering by 5.2 percent in 2022. The recovery in theextractive sector was driven by significant improvement in international prices of key export commodities, althoughthe shutdown of the Porgera gold mine limited the rebound. Growth is estimated to have slowed down to 2.7percent in 2023, primarily attributed to reduced global demand