Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Sales through­out Ch­agua­nas have been rel­a­tive­ly slow, with many busi­ness­es re­port­ing a no­tice­able de­cline com­pared with the same pe­ri­od last year.

This was re­vealed Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce pres­i­dent Bal­dath Ma­haraj, who told Guardian Me­dia that con­sumer spend­ing has been sub­dued, with shop­pers be­ing far more se­lec­tive in their pur­chas­es.

Ma­haraj said the cham­ber was en­cour­aged by re­cent dis­cus­sions in­volv­ing the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Rudolph Bhag­wan­deen and May­or Faaiq Mo­hammed, par­tic­u­lar­ly in re­la­tion to traf­fic man­age­ment and crime re­duc­tion.

“Re­gard­ing traf­fic man­age­ment and crime...we are en­cour­aged by the co­or­di­nat­ed ef­forts cur­rent­ly in place. Traf­fic flow through­out the town has been man­aged ef­fi­cient­ly, and there is a vis­i­ble and ac­tive po­lice pres­ence across key com­mer­cial ar­eas. We al­so note that the ven­dors were re­moved from the pave­ment and placed in a va­cant spot next to the HCU build­ing. These mea­sures have con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to main­tain­ing a safe and or­der­ly en­vi­ron­ment for shop­pers, busi­ness own­ers and em­ploy­ees,” he said.

De­spite the cur­rent slow trad­ing con­di­tions, Ma­haraj said the cham­ber an­tic­i­pates an in­crease in shop­ping ac­tiv­i­ty as con­sumers tra­di­tion­al­ly turn their at­ten­tion to es­sen­tial goods, in­clud­ing gro­ceries and house­hold items, lead­ing up to Christ­mas.

“Many busi­ness­es are op­ti­mistic and are mak­ing arrange­ments for ad­di­tion­al staffing should this an­tic­i­pat­ed up­turn ma­te­ri­alise,” he added.

While the trad­ing en­vi­ron­ment re­mains chal­leng­ing, Ma­haraj said the cham­ber re­mains hope­ful that im­proved con­sumer spend­ing in the com­ing days will pro­vide some re­lief to busi­ness­es that re­ly heav­i­ly on the Christ­mas pe­ri­od.

He said the cham­ber con­tin­ues to work close­ly with law en­force­ment and mu­nic­i­pal au­thor­i­ties to en­sure a safe, ac­ces­si­ble and busi­ness-friend­ly at­mos­phere in Ch­agua­nas.

“We en­cour­age shop­pers to sup­port lo­cal busi­ness­es and take ad­van­tage of the safe and well-man­aged shop­ping en­vi­ron­ment cur­rent­ly in place across the bor­ough,” he said.