Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and its offshore islands in Melanesia. Its capital, located along its southeastern coast, is Port Moresby. It is the world's third largest island country with 462,840 km2 (178,700 sq mi).
The Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF) is the military organisation responsible for the defence of Papua New Guinea. It originated from the Australian Army land forces of the territory of Papua New Guinea before independence, coming into being in January 1973 and having its antecedents in the Pacific Islands Regiment. The PNGDF is a small force numbering around 2,500 personnel and consists of a Land Element, an Air Element and a Maritime Element. It is a joint force tasked with defending Papua New Guinea and its territories against external attack, as well as having secondary functions including national-building and internal security tasks.
Solomon Airlines is the national airline of the Solomon Islands, based in Honiara.
Bougainville, officially the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, is an autonomous region in Papua New Guinea. The largest island is Bougainville Island, while the region also includes Buka Island and a number of outlying islands and atolls. The interim capital is Buka, though it is expected that major government services and buildings will be moved to Arawa, following reconstruction.
Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, or Pasefika, are the peoples of the Pacific Islands. It is a geographic and ethnic/racial term to describe the inhabitants and diaspora of any of the three major sub-regions of Oceania. It is also sometimes used to describe inhabitants of the Pacific islands.
The Solomon Islands are a sovereign state consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and northwest of Vanuatu. It has a land area of 28,400 square kilometres (11,000 sq mi), and a population of 652,858. Its capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal. The country takes its name from the Solomon Islands archipelago, which is a collection of Melanesian islands that also includes the North Solomon Islands, but excludes outlying islands, such as the Santa Cruz Islands and Rennell and Bellona.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), or CommBank, is an Australian multinational bank with businesses across New Zealand, Asia, the United States and the United Kingdom. It provides a variety of financial services including retail, business and institutional banking, funds management, superannuation, insurance, investment and broking services. The Commonwealth Bank is the largest Australian listed company on the Australian Securities Exchange as of August 2015 with brands including Bankwest, Colonial First State Investments, ASB Bank, Commonwealth Securities (CommSec) and Commonwealth Insurance (CommInsure). Commonwealth Bank is also the largest bank in the Southern Hemisphere.
The Bank of New South Wales (BNSW), also known commonly as The Wales, was the first bank in Australia, being established in Sydney in 1817 and situated on Broadway. During the 19th century, the bank opened branches throughout Australia and New Zealand, expanding into Oceania in the 20th century. It merged with many other financial institutions, finally merging with the Commercial Bank of Australia in 1982 and being renamed to the Westpac Banking Corporation on 4 May that year under the Bank of New South Wales Act 1982.
The Banque de l'Indochine was a bank established in Paris on 21 January 1875 to operate in French Indochina, the rest of Asia, and the Pacific. It issued banknotes, not only in French territories, but also in China and elsewhere. Up to World War II, the bank experienced three phases of development. From 1875 to 1888, it functioned as a colonial bank to help the French government manage its colonial properties in South-east Asia. Then from 1889 to 1900, the bank shifted its operations from French Indochina to China. Thereafter, from 1900 to 1941, the bank represented the interests of the French government in handling the Boxer indemnity and transacted international trade between France and China. It merged with Banque de Suez in 1974 to form Banque Indosuez, which was then purchased by the Crédit Agricole group, which operated it as Crédit Agricole Indosuez (CAI), until a 2004 merger with Crédit Lyonnais, which created Calyon.
The Bank of Hawaii Corporation (BOH) is a regional commercial bank headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii. It is Hawaii's second oldest bank and its largest locally owned bank in that the majority of the voting stockholders reside within the state. Bank of Hawaii has the most accounts, customers, branches, and ATMs of any financial institution in the state. The bank consists of four business segments: retail banking, commercial banking, investment services, and treasury. The bank is currently headed by chairman, president and chief executive officer, Peter S. Ho.
Burns Philp was once a major Australian shipping line and merchant that operated in the South Pacific. When the well-populated islands around New Guinea were targeted for blackbirding in the 1880s, a new rush for labour from these islands began. James Burns and Robert Philp purchased several well-known blackbirding ships to quickly exploit the human resource in this region, and Burns Philp entered the slave trade. The company ended its involvement in blackbirding in 1886. In later years the company was a major player in the food manufacturing business. Since its delisting from the Australian Stock Exchange in December 2006 and the subsequent sale of its assets, the company has mainly become a cashed up shell company. It is wholly owned by Graeme Hart's Rank Group.
The Territory of New Guinea was an Australian-administered territory on the island of New Guinea from 1914 until 1975. In 1949, the Territory and the Territory of Papua were established in an administrative union by the name of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea. That administrative union was renamed as Papua New Guinea in 1971. Notwithstanding that it was part of an administrative union, the Territory of New Guinea at all times retained a distinct legal status and identity until the advent of the Independent State of Papua New Guinea.
The full name of the bank is National Bank of Fiji trading as Colonial National Bank. The bank is as of December 2009 a subsidiary of Bank South Pacific and has the largest branch network in Fiji. It also has a majority holding in one of the two merchant banks in the country.
The Bank of Papua New Guinea is the central bank of Papua New Guinea. Its main function is to issue currency and to act as the banker and financial agent to the Government. It is also in charge of regulating banking and other financial services and manages the gold, foreign exchange and any other international reserves of Papua New Guinea. Mr Loi Martin Bakani is the current governor of the bank.
Founded in 1921 as Australian Guarantee Company to initially provide finance for purchasers of smaller household items, it progressed into financing motor vehicles and was renamed as Australian Guarantee Corporation Limited in 1925 ("AGC"). AGC was Australia's oldest national finance company offering a range of finance, investment and insurance products and were market leaders in equipment finance, cashflow finance, motor vehicle and personal finance.
Bank South Pacific is the largest bank in Papua New Guinea, with 35 branches throughout the country and in 6 countries. BSP currently services over 650,000 business banking customers throughout the Pacific. As at 31 December 2014, BSP had total assets valued at K15.8 billion. Bank South Pacific is listed on the Port Moresby Stock Exchange.
Westpac Banking Corporation, known simply as Westpac, is an Australian bank and financial services provider headquartered in Sydney, Australia. Established in 1817 as the Bank of New South Wales, it acquired the Commercial Bank of Australia in 1982 before being renamed shortly afterwards. It is one of Australia's "big four" banks and is Australia's first and oldest banking institution. Its name is a portmanteau of "Western" and "Pacific".
Buin is a town on Bougainville Island, and the capital of the South Bougainville District, in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, in eastern Papua New Guinea. The island is in the northern Solomon Islands Archipelago of the Melanesia region, in the South Pacific Ocean.
Pacific Partnership is an annual deployment of forces from the Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy (USN), in cooperation with regional governments and military forces, along with humanitarian and non-government organizations.
