Greater equity in Islands business

A development which ”is arousing considerable interest” in the Solomon Islands is the recent formation of the Solomon Islands Investment Company, the Western Pacific High Commissioner, Sir Michael Gass, told the BSIP Governing Council in Honiara in August.

He said the aim of the company was to give small local investors the chance to take shares in well-established concerns which until now have been wholly owned by expatriates.

And in Port Moresby the same week, PNG Minister for Lands, Mr. Albert Maori Kiki, told an Associated Chambers of Commerce meeting that some foreign companies in PNG were making excessive profits while refusing to promote indigenous staff. The “best insurance” that companies could have in PNG was to give fair and equitable treatment to local people and their government, said Mr. Kiki, in the bluntest warning yet from the new National Coalition government that overseas companies will have to give New Guineans a bigger share of management and profits.