Sascha?Wil­son

Com­mer­cial man­ag­er at ANSA Coat­ings Ltd Umanath Ma­hara­jh wants to see more pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor in­vest­ment in lo­cal paint prod­ucts.

In his ad­dress at the of­fi­cial launch of the coun­try's newest Sis­sons Colour Shop at SS Erin Road, Debe, on Tues­day Ma­hara­jh said: "What we find hap­pen­ing is that even when we have bet­ter qual­i­ty, even when we have bet­ter pric­ing, some­how from some­where with­in the sys­tem and bu­reau­cra­cy, you see for­eign paint be­ing spec­i­fied and be­ing used."

He said the Food Pro­duc­tion Min­istry is grow­ing onions in Ch­aguara­mas to re­duce the food im­port bill, "oth­er peo­ple are spec­i­fy­ing paints from the US from Brazil from Eu­rope. That is not con­sis­tent.

He added: "So in our dai­ly de­ci­sions please use what is done lo­cal­ly and what con­tributes to the lo­cal econ­o­my be­cause this is where we live, this is where we are."

Ma­hara­jh is con­fi­dent the Debe Colour Shop will be a suc­cess and will sat­is­fy all the paint­ing needs of the rapid­ly de­vel­op­ing area. Spe­cial fea­tures at the store, which opened to the pub­lic last No­vem­ber, is a colour vi­su­al­i­sa­tion sys­tem. He ex­plained that the sys­tem al­lowed cus­tomers to "see how your house would look in dif­fer­ent colours from Sis­sons, dif­fer­ent colours from com­peti­tors, be­fore you even put a drop paint on the house."

He said the sys­tem is avail­able on the com­pa­ny's Web site and a pro­gramme is be­ing de­vel­oped for mo­bile phones.

ANSA Coat­ings man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Roger Roach said the open­ing of the Debe store has put the com­pa­ny a step clos­er to achiev­ing its goal of be­com­ing a re­gion­al coat­ings pow­er­house. He said two months ago the com­pa­ny launched its first colour shop in Ja­maica as part of its tar­get­ed ob­jec­tive to deep­en its re­gion­al foot­print fol­low­ing the suc­cess­ful in­cor­po­ra­tion of ANSA Coat­ings Ja­maica Ltd last Oc­to­ber.

"ANSA Coat­ings is the most di­ver­si­fied coat­ings com­pa­ny in the re­gion. We are not on­ly top of class for dec­o­ra­tive paint but we al­so lead the au­to­mo­tive paint sec­tor, we are a ma­jor play­er in the in­dus­tri­al and ma­rine coat­ing sec­tor and we pro­vide a wide range of ac­ces­sories."

Roach said the com­pa­ny will be in­tro­duc­ing its own pri­vate la­belled brand of rollers paint brush­es and oth­er prod­ucts lat­er this year.

"Our goal is to be­come the re­gion­al coat­ings pow­er­house and we are close and to dou­ble the size of our busi­ness over the next five years. We see this lo­ca­tion and oth­ers to come in this area, which is be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly ur­banised, as a key pil­lar to achiev­ing those ob­jec­tives as we ex­pand the brand to every cor­ner of T&T and to every cor­ner of the Caribbean re­gion.

"We be­lieve we can of­fer val­ue to the mar­ket here in Debe and Pe­nal and our group views this area as an im­por­tant strate­gic lo­ca­tion," Roach said.

He al­so point­ed out that Sis­sons had been man­u­fac­tur­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing pre­mi­um paints and coat­ings in the Caribbean since 1956 and now has more than 600 prod­ucts and over 1200 colours.

"From Guyana in the south to Be­lize in the north, with man­u­fac­tur­ing plants in Trinidad and Grena­da, Sis­sons is a recog­nised and trust­ed brand among home own­ers, large and small con­trac­tors, prop­er­ty de­vel­op­ers and ar­chi­tects. We beau­ti­fy com­mu­ni­ties and pro­vide colour to en­rich lives," he said.

Shi­va Roop­nar­ine, pres­i­dent of the Pe­nal Debe Cham­ber of Com­merce, said the area was de­vel­op­ing at an as­tro­nom­i­cal rate.

"Long gone are the days when Debe was known on­ly for dou­bles," he said.

Roop­nar­ine said the store will serve the needs of Debe's fast grow­ing pop­u­la­tion.

Micheal Ram­sook, the fran­chise hold­er for the new shop to­geth­er with his wife Ri­ta, said busi­ness had been good with cus­tomers from as far as Point Fortin.