As Papua New Guinea celebrates its 50th anniversary, Business Advantage PNG takes a look at some of the key economic events in its history and key players in business and commerce that have played an important role in its development.
Prince Charles, now King Charles III, opens the first Parliament of Papua New Guinea in September 1975. Credit: File
Over the past 50 years, Papua New Guinea has proved a land of opportunity for many in business.
While it’s frequently observed that successful companies in PNG take a long-term view, their success has often been driven by a single pioneering vision.
“When you look at the history of Brian Bell Group, it’s probably similar to a lot of family-oriented businesses that have started in PNG – from really humble beginnings,” observes Cameron Mackellar, CEO of the retail group.
Brian Bell (later Sir Brian) started his business in a gun shop on Port Moresby’s Ela Beach in 1958. Although he passed away in 2010, the company he left behind is today one of PNG’s largest retail groups, with more than 1300 staff, 16 retail outlets and an extensive property portfolio.
Mackellar estimates that the business had only a couple of hundred employees at the time of independence.
“If you looked at us then, we had 20,000 customers and our loan book was around K300 million. We’re now ten times the size.”
“It wasn’t until the 1980s that it was a fairly significant retailer – there were some major acquisitions made along the way which helped diversify the group. We feel there’s more growth in each division in the coming years.”
Another retail pioneer, Sir Mahesh Patel, arrived in PNG in 1984 to take up a job as a pharmacist – famously, with only A$35 in his pocket.
More than 30 years on, the CPL Group he created with co-founder, the late Alan Jarvis, has grown through good times and bad to include pharmacies, hardware stores, supermarkets, fashion brands and healthcare.
“With the wealth the country has got per capita, PNG is not a poor country, but management of the wealth is critical,” Patel observes.
Like the Brian Bell Group, CPL has its own charitable foundation, and Patel believes PNG’s corporate sector has an important role to play in raising health and living standards in the country.
Another notable business pioneer was Sir George Constantinou, who arrived in PNG in the late 1950s and founded a welding company, Papuan Welders. Over time, he and his successors have built a diversified business that incorporates property development, hospitality, construction and building supply.
Today, the Constantinou Group is headed by Sir George’s grandson and namesake.
Other businesses that have grown to significant scale since independence include Lae-based retailer and manufacturer K K Kingston (founded by Keith Kingston), construction company Hornibrook NGI (the Lewis family), Tininga Ltd (the Duckworth family) and engineering company Kramer Ausenco (the Kramer family).
Home grown
Two other PNG-grown success stories, albeit of a different kind, are financial institutions: BSP Financial Group and Kina Bank.
Started in 1957 as a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Bank of Australasia, Bank South Pacific was rebranded and open for business ahead of PNG gaining independence in 1975.
By 1995, it was 100 per cent owned by PNG interests. However, the bank’s transformative moment is widely regarded as its amalgamation with the ailing state-owned PNG Banking Corporation in 2002 to make it PNG’s largest bank, and its subsequent corporatisation and listing on PNGX the following year.
The bank’s balance sheet has continued to grow strongly in the two decades since, partly from domestic growth and partly through the acquisition of other financial institutions across the Pacific. Today, it bank has over 80 branches in PNG and a further 30 across the South Pacific.
“We are the South Pacific’s international bank – the only bank that’s been born and raised in the South Pacific that is operating across multiple countries in the region,” says BSP’s CEO, Mark Robinson.
Founded as a small finance business, Kina Securities, back in 1985, Kina is today PNG’s second-largest bank.
“I remember that in the first day in the office we had seven people and three computers,” reminisced founding CEO Syd Yates to Business Advantage PNG at the time of his retirement in 2017.
After many years of steady growth, by 2015 Kina was PNG’s largest non-bank lender. Then came its own transformative moment, when it acquired the PNG banking licence of Malaysia’s Maybank, rebranded as Kina Bank, and listed on both the PNGX and ASX.
“If you looked at us then, we had 20,000 customers and our loan book was around K300 million. We’re now ten times the size,” observes Greg Pawson, who took over from Yates as CEO and left the role in early 2025.
Domestic investors
Also in finance, it’s hard to overstate the importance of the country’s two major superannuation funds, Nasfund and Nambawan Super.
Beneficiaries of significant reforms to PNG’s superannuation sector in the early 2000s, the two funds between them now play a major role, alongside smaller sector-based funds, as equity investors and property developers in the local economy.
“Despite the ups and downs in PNG, it’s our home, and we intend to continue evolving and growing with the country.”
“Before the reforms, the whole industry size was K1 billion; now we are K19 billion,” notes Rajeev Sharma, CEO of Nasfund. “In terms of the number of members, it’s close to a million. It could and should be far more.”
Meanwhile, the resources revenues that have flowed into state-owned Mineral Resources Development Company (MRDC), which manages the beneficial interests of landowners and provincial governments, have enabled it to build one of PNG’s most substantial asset portfolios.
It is the developer of the premium Star Mountain Plaza development in Port Moresby, has its own power company, Dirio Gas and Power, and has widespread investments in property, logistics, healthcare and tourism. In 2024, it announced itself as a resources developer, agreeing to a 50 per cent stake in the Pasca A gas project.
Another major domestic investor, Steamships Trading Company, was already a household name in PNG at the time of its independence. Founded in 1918 with one vessel, Steamships had by the 1970s grown into a diversified conglomerate.
In 1975, it posted a then-record profit and its archives record that it donated both cash and goods to the country’s independence celebrations. In recent years, ASX- and PNGX-listed Steamships has restructured around its property, logistics and hospitality divisions.
“Our strategy hasn’t changed,” says Steamships’ Managing Director Chris Daniells. “We’re a long-term investor, we build assets that have 20 to 30 years of economic life and we have committed shareholders.
“Despite the ups and downs in PNG, it’s our home, and we intend to continue evolving and growing with the country.”
International powerhouse
With a presence in PNG since the 1920s, global energy giant ExxonMobil and its predecessors have made a substantial impact in the country since independence. In 1978, subsidiary Chevron Niugini was involved in the exploration for oil in Southern Highlands Province, which resulted in PNG’s first commercial oil production at Kutubu in 1992.
In 2004, work by subsidiary Esso Highlands and its venture partners began on what would become PNG’s first liquefied gas project and largest ever international investment, PNG LNG. The project exported its first gas to Asian markets in 2014 and has been operating above nameplate capacity ever since.
State-owned enterprises
Alongside the private sector, several state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have developed since independence to play a key role in PNG’s economy, particularly in resources, energy and infrastructure.
In addition to MRDC, these are companies that fall under the ‘Kumul’ banner – Kumul Petroleum Holdings (in petroleum and gas), Kumul Minerals Holdings (in mining), as well as the many SOEs grouped under Kumul Consolidated Holdings, which include national airline Air Niugini, PNG Ports Corporation, utility PNG Power, telco Telikom PNG and telecommunications wholesaler PNG DataCo.
Landowner companies
Landowner companies, or ‘lancos’, are a unique feature of PNG’s business landscape. They have emerged as a result of the way land is owned in PNG (97 per cent is customarily owned). Where customary land is used for a commercial project, local business participation in that commercial project is often included as a condition of land use.
As a result, local landowner groups have come to establish successful businesses servicing the commercial project – and often others across the country too.
Notable examples include the Anitua Group, Hides Gas Development Company, Laba Holdings, Trans Wonderland Ltd and NKW Group.
This is an edited version of an article first published in the 2025 Business Advantage PNG annual edition.
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