Families nationwide will soon pay less for thirteen (13) selected basic food items and products all thanks to the National Government’s exemption of Goods and Services Tax (GST) on these items, which includes rice, tinned fish and chicken. Prime Minister (PM) James Marape announced this, stating that this positive change will come into effect on the 1st of July 2025. Prime Minister Marape said this while detailing the Household Assistance Support Package Government is giving to Papua New Guinean families under the 2025 National Budget. He was speaking in the Moresby North-East electorate, National Capital District, on Friday 29th November several hours after Treasurer, Ian Ling Stuckey, handed down the budget in Parliament. The Prime Minister was in Moresby North-East to officiate at the launch of several impact projects for the electorate, initiated under the leadership of local Member, John Kaupa. These projects included the development of Nine Mile Saivara Township, Level 4 Hospital and the opening of the Nine Mile Police Station. The PM said the Marape-Rosso Government is removing the 10 percent GST on 13 essential household items – rice, tinned fish, tinned meat, chicken, tea, coffee, biscuits, noodles, flour, cooking oil, women’s sanitary item, soap, and baby diapers. "By 1st July next year, 2025, you will not pay 10 percent GST on these essential household items. We have the tax exempted on these items to ease the burden on families throughout Papua New Guinea,” Prime Minister Marape told the people of North-East,” Marape said. He said to make this GST exemption on the essential items, K100 million is being allocated to the Internal Revenue Commission (IRC) for the purchase of a Goods and Services Monitoring System (GMS) designed to collect tax at the point of sale. This system will be installed on all electronic cashier machines in all the shops and will be used in this new exercise. “We are also not increasing any tax for items including cigarettes and alcohol. We are paying school fees from elementary to university and colleges, and we are giving tax rebates to private education school fees,” said the Prime Minister. Meantime, Treasurer Ling-Stuckey, in his budget speech in Parliament, said the new GST Monitoring System will not charge this tax by 1st July 2025, and this exemption is expected to run through to 30th June 2026, with plans for extension as part of the 2026 budget. He added this new Household Assistance Support Package to families is costing K685 million and is part of the intervention the Pangu-led Government has been giving to PNG households in the last four years since the Ukraine-Russia war triggered surging prices worldwide. Over the four years to 2025, the Household Assistance Support Package will total over K2.3 billion. Government is also continuing next year to exempt Personal Income Tax for people earning salaries below K20,000 per year. For first home buyers, Government is lifting the stamp duty exemption threshold from K500,000 to K700,000, while it freezes the bi-annual indexation of excise on tobacco products and alcohol.