Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape has praised the Mineral Resources Development Company (MRDC) on its 50th anniversary, calling the state-owned enterprise a “powerhouse” and an example of the country’s resilience and capacity to drive its own development.
Speaking at a gala event on Saturday at Port Moresby’s Hilton Hotel — one of MRDC’s major investments — Marape said the company had grown from its establishment in 1975 into a K16 billion enterprise, despite broader economic and political challenges over the decades.
“If anyone thinks Papua New Guinea has no success story, MRDC disproves that line of thinking,” Marape said. “Amid our ups and downs, MRDC remains one of the strongest positive stories in our nation’s life.”
He credited the country’s founding prime minister, Sir Michael Somare, for setting up MRDC shortly before independence and for insisting that Papua New Guineans could manage their own commercial interests at a time when there was widespread external doubt.
“In the 1970s, when it was generally believed that Papua New Guineans could not do anything, Papa Somare believed they could,” Marape said. “MRDC is the true reflection of that can-do attitude.”
Marape said the company’s structure — created under Somare’s early leadership — had proven durable and self-sustaining, with all managing directors throughout its history being Papua New Guineans.
He pointed to the Hilton Hotel’s location in Hohola, a suburb once considered marginal, linking the site symbolically to the origins of the Pangu Pati and the “Bully Beef Club,” where key figures in the independence movement once met.
“This hotel reflects the aspiration of this country,” Marape said. “From a small, tucker-box house you can leapfrog in one generation to a hotel of this standard — the kind you find anywhere in a first-world nation.”
The prime minister reaffirmed his government’s policy that 40% of equity from state commercial holdings should be returned to landowners and provincial governments.
The anniversary celebration was attended by senior government ministers, provincial governors, international diplomats, and leaders from MRDC subsidiary companies across several resource-producing regions, including Star Mountains, Kutubu, Hides, and provinces such as Gulf, Central and Madang.