OUT OF EVIL, COMETH...

The demand for prefabricated windows in Grenada as a result of the severe damage to homes and businesses by hurricane Ivan has led to these items being in short supply in Trinidad, particularly in Port-of-Spain and environs, while at the same time it has created business opportunities for entrepreneurs here. There are two markets involved, the Trinidad and Tobago market and that of Grenada. Enterprising business-men/wo-men need not limit themselves to focusing on prefabricated windows.  Instead they can examine other areas both of known and likely shortages which, once orders for those items have been made and filled, will automatically create demands that will need to be met.

In turn, rather than wait for the shortages to arise enterpreneurs can invest in a business trip to the Isle of Spice, study the areas of concern, that is where the demand exists and take orders from bona fide businessmen. Although Trinidad may have escaped the savage beating of Hurricane Ivan, the shortages it created in Grenada have had a domino effect here. Not only have they given rise in turn to dwindling supplies and triggering shortages here,  but have had a negative impact on prices as demand outstripped supply. What has added to the somewhat unusual demand for special orders — such as prefabricated windows as well as building supplies generally — has been the escalation in construction in Trinidad and Tobago prompted by Government’s decision to build an average of 10,000 housing units annually over the next ten years.

But while Trinidad and Tobago’s accelerated housing programme understandably led to an expanded placing of orders by hardware dealers anxious to cash in on the bonanza, the ravages of Hurricane Ivan could hardly have been anticipated. Admittedly, Hurricane Gilbert had been tough on Jamaica and some of the smaller states of Caricom when it struck in 1988. However, recent hurricanes, for example Hurricane Lenny in November of 1998 and that of Jose the following year, even though they had done severe damage had been nothing of the order of Gilbert’s damage to Jamaica. But the burden of reconstruction required offered not much for small entrepreneurs. Ivan was different, and while it has caused tremendous social dislocation, what with 90 percent of the homes destroyed, it has afforded householders whose homes were insured, the chance not simply to rebuild but to erect homes more in keeping with modern trends and global standards.