Raphael John-Lall

Af­ter a year in which the busi­ness sec­tor faced chal­lenges like a lack of for­eign ex­change and an out-of-con­trol crime rate, the busi­ness sec­tor in south Trinidad is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a slow Christ­mas sea­son.

Pres­i­dent of the Pe­nal/Debe Cham­ber of Com­merce, Moti­lal Ram­s­ingh told the Busi­ness Guardian that “busi­ness is slow­er” this year.

“Since the on­set of COVID-19, the road to re­cov­ery for busi­ness­es in Pe­nal/Debe has been long, and un­for­tu­nate­ly, many have yet to bounce back. As we look ahead, we an­tic­i­pate more clo­sures in the com­ing year. Giv­en the cur­rent trends in road traf­fic and foot traf­fic at lo­cal gro­cery stores, we are ex­pect­ing a slow­er sea­son,” he said.

He added that re­tail busi­ness­es face sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges, with the dif­fi­cul­ty in ac­cess­ing forex and in­creased on­line shop­ping.

“How­ev­er, these ob­sta­cles al­so al­low sta­t­ic stores to ac­cel­er­ate their shift to e-com­merce. Dig­i­tal pay­ments are fur­ther open­ing doors for in­no­va­tion, in­creased mar­kets and for­eign ex­change earn­ings, par­tic­u­lar­ly in sec­tors like wood­work­ing,” said Ram­s­ingh.

Com­ment­ing on the crime scourge that the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and T&T is fac­ing, he said it con­tin­ues to im­pact busi­ness neg­a­tive­ly dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son. De­spite the chal­lenges, he holds out hope as some work­ers and pen­sion­ers in the coun­try will be get­ting paid for the sea­son and that will cause ex­tra spend­ing.

“How­ev­er, there is hope. Pub­lic sec­tor work­ers and pen­sion­ers were ex­pect­ed to re­ceive their pay­ments last week, which should boost the lo­cal econ­o­my. While chal­lenges are like­ly to per­sist in the short term, the re­silience busi­ness­es have demon­strat­ed through­out 2024 lays a strong foun­da­tion for growth and im­prove­ment in the years to come.”

Pres­i­dent of the Siparia Cham­ber of Com­merce, Emer­son Ched­die said this Christ­mas sea­son so far is a mixed one.

“This Christ­mas, we have ob­served a mixed per­for­mance com­pared to 2023. While some sec­tors have seen a slight in­crease in sales, oth­ers have ex­pe­ri­enced a de­cline. Over­all, the eco­nom­ic chal­lenges and shift­ing con­sumer be­hav­iours have made this hol­i­day sea­son more un­pre­dictable.”

He spoke about how the lack of for­eign ex­change has af­fect­ed busi­ness­es this sea­son.

“Yes, the lack of for­eign ex­change and the rise in crime have sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­pact­ed our busi­ness this Christ­mas. The short­age of forex has led to in­creased costs for im­port­ed goods, af­fect­ing our prof­it mar­gins. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the rise in crime has cre­at­ed a sense of in­se­cu­ri­ty among our cus­tomers, lead­ing to re­duced foot traf­fic in our phys­i­cal stores and a de­cline in over­all sales.”

Pres­i­dent of the San Fer­nan­do Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion, Daphne Bartlett said Christ­mas sales have been much slow­er than even last year.

“We are very much aware that em­ploy­ment has been much low­er than nor­mal since the clo­sure of our beloved re­fin­ery. The Min­istry of Fi­nance re­cent­ly al­lud­ed to the short­age of forex be­cause of the clo­sure of the re­fin­ery. Al­ways re­mem­ber we earned forex from the fu­el we re­ceived from the re­fin­ing of oil whether it was ours or im­port­ed.”

She al­so said the clo­sure of the re­fin­ery cre­at­ed un­em­ploy­ment across all ar­eas and in the down­stream in­dus­tries which has cre­at­ed eco­nom­ic gloom and a sense of hope­less­ness in some south­ern com­mu­ni­ties.

“When peo­ple are un­em­ployed, they can­not spend. Why do you think there is so much home­less­ness around or even so much crime? Peo­ple are hun­gry! Un­less we do a lot ad­dress these prob­lems, we are doomed.”