Tango expands investments

Business
Tango’s new store at Tokarara in Port will be selling uniforms for 10 schools. Staff Tuvi Kavafumi (left) and Joy Onavi are happy to attend to customers.
Tango supermarket and department store at Tokarara which was opened on Monday.

By CLARISSA MOI
WITH more than 40 years of operating in the country, the Tango group of companies has expanded into investing in motels and apartments, according to general manager Colin Spencer.
He said they recently opened a motel in Daru, Western.
“Here (Port Moresby), we have four or five apartments which we are going to demolish and build about 16 maximum low-cost housing for local staff to rent.
“We’ve got another five to six residential properties from Ela Beach, Boroko and Waigani.
“We’ve just finished a joint venture with Sun City where we built 40 houses at 7-Mile. We’re starting a warehouse development up there and we have also built some commercial projects at 6-Mile and Gordon.”
Spencer said during the opening of Tango’s new shopping centre at Tokarara in Port Moresby that there were plans to build a mall in Mt Hagen, Western Highlands, where shops would be leased out.
“Our key concern was to get this one (Tango at Tokarara) finished first.
“It won’t be a Tango store. It will be just a mall.
“We will be leasing shops out. But it will still be part of the Tango group.”
Owner Nellie Tan said she started the business with just a sewing machine at Tokarara’s old TST shop. Now she is the owner of the Tango group of companies.
“I employ a lot of people and I train them on how to sew because I am a designer. So I offer them that skill.”
Tan said people were impressed at how the business had grown over the years.
She said the Tango supermarket and department store would house a factory with embroidery machines on the top floor.
She now has four companies operating under the Tango group: Tango, Total Workspace Supplies, LoveBites Bakery and The Mall property management.

Tango owner Nellie Tan (second from left) and NCD Governor Powes Parkop, unveiling the plaque for Tango Tokarara Supermarket with children Cindy and Leonard. – Nationalpic by JERRY TSINABI