JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Sunday, July 27, 2025

Sando businesses brace for drop in Christmas sales

by

20131202

San Fer­nan­do busi­ness­es suf­fered a 15 to 20 per cent drop in Christ­mas sales last year and are ex­pect­ing the sit­u­a­tion to be equal­ly grim this year, Daphne Bartlett, head of the San Fer­nan­do Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion said yes­ter­day.

"Glob­al­ly, shop­ping is down and the econ­o­my is down around the world. Over the last five years it has been pro­gres­sive­ly slow­er. This year is no dif­fer­ent as there will be a 15 to 20 per cent drop in sales from last year. And last year was 15 to 20 per cent less than the year be­fore. That is the way it has been for the past five years," Bartlett told the T&T Guardian.Bartlett at­trib­ut­es the drop in Christ­mas sales to prob­lems with re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al economies and their im­pact on T&T's eco­nom­ic life.

"This drop is sales has noth­ing to do with lack of con­fi­dence in the econ­o­my. It has to do with the glob­al econ­o­my, the num­ber of peo­ple em­ployed, the num­ber of peo­ple with make-work jobs. The dis­pos­able in­come of peo­ple is not what it used to be when we had the oil and gas boom. There are the make-work jobs go­ing on but not for as long pe­ri­ods as be­fore. Those are the peo­ple who spend mon­ey. Peo­ple in the high­er in­come brack­et shop away and they shop on­line," she said.

Bartlett is hop­ing the wa­ter taxi ser­vice will make shop­ping in San Fer­nan­do a vi­able op­tion for peo­ple trav­el­ling from north Trinidad."We are ask­ing that the wa­ter taxis make two ad­di­tion­al runs, one up and one down to get in­to the city. That will be in ad­di­tion to the runs they have now. It fa­cil­i­tates shop­pers that come to the city and be­cause of this they do not have to come with their cars and there will be less traf­fic," she said.

Com­ment­ing on re­cent ini­tia­tives from the Trans­port Min­istry, she added: "I know the Min­ster of Trans­port is go­ing to launch the park and ride which we ini­ti­at­ed last year and he will launch it on Wednes­day in south. This will as­sist with park­ing and get­ting in­to the city. There will be park­ing at NA­PA South. That will help," Bartlett said.She said San Fer­nan­do has the best shop­ping cen­tres in the coun­try be­cause of the high po­lice pres­ence and safe­ty over the past decade.

"San Fer­nan­do is a very at­trac­tive city to come to, so once there is park­ing and se­cu­ri­ty shop­pers will have a good ex­pe­ri­ence. Shop­pers get good prices and usu­al­ly it is a pret­ty se­cure place to shop and do busi­ness. That is how it has been over the last ten years be­cause of joint army and po­lice pa­trols to keep away ban­dits," Bartlett said.She said she ex­pects mod­er­ate eco­nom­ic growth for T&T in 2014.

"There will be small growth. We are no longer in­to the boom days. What­ev­er hap­pens glob­al­ly af­fects us. T&T can­not say that it is in­su­lat­ed from the rest of the world. The Caribbean is do­ing bad­ly. Ja­maica and oth­er Caribbean coun­tries have gone to the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF). But T&T is still do­ing bet­ter than those coun­tries," she said.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored