Corporate entry: British Solomon Islands Trading Corporation
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The B.S.I. Trading Corporation was set up after the Second World War as the government Trading Scheme-the government's commercial arm for wholesale and retail trading. It was used to provide consumer goods, filling a gap left by companies which did not return after the war. The original store was opened in a former U.S. Army hut on the foreshore at Point Cruz, Honiara, near the present-day Yacht Club. The Scheme was made a corporation on 29 September 1955, and a new regulation in July 1960 allowed it to be sold to private industry. A second branch was opened in Gizo, in two Quonset huts used mainly for storing copra, with a deepwater wharf.
In March 1962, the Corporation, excluding its plantations, was sold to D. J. Gubbay & Co. (New Hebrides) Pty. Ltd., which operated the South Pacific Fishing Company, based at Santo, New Hebrides (Vanuatu). The Corporation closed its doors on 29 June 1962, though its assets were not fully liquidated until 1966. The new company maintained the existing Honiara and Gizo branches and opened another in Auki. It sold basic items such as tinned foods, rice and clothing, and collected and stored copra for shipping. It also acted as an agent for numerous companies including the Banks Line, Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O), China Navigation, Lloyds of London, Australian and New Zealand Bank, Honda, Fordson Tractors, Johnson Outboards, Shell Oil Co., Hawker de Havilland, Gordons Gin, Martell Brandy, Heineken Lager, Noritake China, Mikimoto Pearls, Time, Life and Newsweek magazines, Canon cameras, EMI, Hoover, Longines, Rolex, Toshiba, the British Phosphates Commission, Burns Philp & Co. and the BSIP Copra Board. (PIM Nov. 1955; NS July 1960, Dec. 1961, 31 Mar. 1962, 15 Apr. 1962, 30 May 1964; Close 2011, 112, 152, 169, 171, 173, 179)
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Books
- Close, Jack, South Pacific Adventure: The Sequel to 'Beyond the Horizon', Riverhead, Hull, 2011. Details