Expansion in Tonga
p. 11 · Read in the full issue
From Our Own Correspondent
Nukualofa, Sept. 26.
THE activities of the Japanese firm, Banno Bros. (Tonga), Ltd., in Tonga, and elsewhere in the Pacific, seem to be ever expanding.
As a sideline to their main business in Tonga, they have just onened up the mam store of the old firm, O. B. Krause & Co., at Nukualofa (which ceased busi ness at the beginning of the year) under the name of the “Tonga Trading Co.”, after having acquired the whole of that firm’s property, as a “cash and carry” concern. What they call special nrice re ductions have caught the fickle fancy of the unsophisticated Tongans.
In recent months they have imported large quantities of Japanese cement for the purpose of erecting concrete build ings. The first of these is a big copra shed in the middle of Nukualofa, which is nearing completion. This is to be fol lowed by others, including a hotel along the waterfront, near the site of the old Briggs Picture Hall.
The elder of the Banno brothers, who came on the last “Matua” from Auckland (where a branch of the firm has been in business for some years) sailed on their own motor schooner “Tu’itoga”, at the end of August, to Apia, Samoa, to open up a new branch of the firm there.