Links with Papua New Guinea were established when The China Navigation Co. first began trading to PNG from the Far East in 1939. In 1952, CNCo established the New Guinea Australia Line, which was eventually absorbed into the Chief Container Service, serving Australia, PNG, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. A close relationship with one of Papua New Guinea's largest trading companies - Steamships Trading Co. Ltd. - provided a firm foundation for growth in this area.

Swire's land-based interests in Papua New Guinea are built on the 1996 acquisition by John Swire & Sons (PNG) Ltd. (a 100% subsidiary of John Swire & Sons Ltd.) of a majority shareholding in Collins & Leahy Holdings Ltd., another prominent local trading company. This acquisition gave John Swire & Sons (PNG) Ltd. a 51% beneficial shareholding in Steamships, which is quoted on the Port Moresby and Sydney stock exchanges. JS&S (PNG) has subsequently increased its shareholdings in Collins & Leahy and Steamships to 100% and 72% respectively.

• Steamships Trading Co. Ltd.
  Steamships is one of the largest non-mining companies in Papua New Guinea, currently employing some 2,250 Papua New Guineans and 50 expatriates within the group. This places Steamships among the country's largest private-sector employers. Steamships, which was incorporated in 1919, was formed in order to salvage a wrecked vessel, but soon switched to trading along the coast of Papua. The company rapidly diversified, and now has five principal divisions:

  • Steamships Hardware is an icon in PNG. With 10 stores in eight locations, it is the biggest and best-known hardware wholesale and retail business in the country, and also manufactures kit houses for national and export sale.

  • The Hotels division, trading as Coral Sea Hotels, owns and operates a chain of eight hotels in the major business centres of PNG. It is the largest hotel chain in the country, and the only one with national coverage.

  • The Manufacturing division includes interests in Laga Industries, which is the sole manufacturer of ice cream in PNG, and also packages and distributes a wide range of other food and personal-care products, and Trade Winds Liquor, which blends and bottles a range of spirituous liquors and ready-to-drink beverages, and also imports wine and spirits to PNG. The third company in the division, Melanesian Soap Products, holds Steamships' interests in Colgate Palmolive (PNG) Ltd.

  • The Property division holds key commercial, industrial and residential properties, together with a land bank of property for development, making Steamships one of the largest private landlords in Papua New Guinea.

  • The Shipping division operates its own coastal fleet of nine vessels, including tugs and barges that specialise in estuarine and river trades in the Gulf of Papua region. The division owns and operates a fleet of five vessels on long-term charter to the Ok Tedi Mining Corp. Tonnage is also chartered to Consort Express Lines - Papua New Guinea's leading coastal shipping line - in which Steamships has a one-third holding. In addition to owning vessels, Steamships operates the largest shipping agency business in PNG and is a shareholder and manager of stevedoring companies at the seven largest ports. The division also owns an engineering services company, specialising in slipway overhauling and ship repair.

  • The Transport division comprises Port Moresby Transport (PomTrans) in Port Moresby, and Niutrans and East West Transport in Lae. PomTrans and Niutrans specialise in local general cartage - notably of fuel for the major oil companies in Port Moresby - while East West Transport is one of the largest longdistance road haulage companies in the country, transporting consumer goods, mining equipment and other products up the Highlands Highway and to the mining operations in Wau and Bulolo, and bringing tea and coffee back down to Lae for export.

• Markham Farm Ltd.
  Markham Farm is located in the Markham Valley, northwest of Lae. Here, 5,700 hectares are given over to two cattle stations with approximately 8,000 head of prize-winning beef cattle, and 1,000 hectares to a cocoa plantation producing high-quality cocoa beans for export and sale to several of the world's premier chocolate manufacturers in the USA and Europe. In September 2004, the French chocolate manufacturer, Michel Cluizel, launched a single-estate chocolate bar, made exclusively from beans from Markham Farm. This chocolate, called 'Maralumi' after a part of the property, is the only single-estate chocolate yet to be produced from PNG. A by-product of the use of coconut palms for shade at the plantation is the production of desiccated coconut for the local market and copra for export.