Re Locating Chaguanas Public Market

Dear Minister,

I listened to your presentation and ideas yesterday on TV. Yes it is a very good idea to re locate the market and find at lease 25 acres of state lands to make a brand new facility with a big parking area so our citizens can shop in a new type of facility provided by the PP government.There are some known and un known factors we must consider when we want to diversify the way we do business to improve overall customer’s satisfaction and market vendors profitability to stay in the business.

The way our citizens do their market shopping is a cultural thing that goes back many years where people will meet other people to socialize and chat about the political landscape.

For any business place to be highly successful it will need a high volume of walk in customers on a daily basis to buy out the goods at attractive prices. Let us re examine the present situation of selling public market goods that has changed over the years based on the key word here convenience shopping. Today we have all kinds of shoppers that will buy goods depending on their income levels. Typically middle class and upper class citizens will tend to buy all their local fruits and vegetables at big groceries because it is a convenient thing to do using the push cart trolley. Right there this factor has taken away a high volume of traditional public market customers. Most of the customers that shop at public markets are the citizens that like the idea of going to the public market to have a wider choice and price checking to full up their basket with the basic items they will need for their weekly supply. These customers are the ones that have to work with their salary budget to make ends meet. That are lots of new competitions that has opened up island wide with selling locally produced food items. Today many citizens have choices of buying food items at the road sides and big grocery stores that took away customers from public market vendors.

Re locating the public market at Chaguanas will take at lease two years to get this new facility to be installed and a lot of new benefits will come with the re location. The area downtown will get more road room for traffic to flow and the existing market space can be used for some kind of important government business. The new facility will provide better sanitation, the vendors will get innovative to sell their produce to meet public satisfaction.

What are some of the food items that our citizens prefer to buy that have become attractive to prepare a quick meal. Provisions like yams, dasheen, pumpkins, cassava and others are now readily available in cut up packages in grocery stores for families to prepare traditional meals quickly. It is a big job for a housewife the prepare these food items and it take a special skill with a sharp knife the prepare these provisions.

With these basic ideas we hope the government Technocrat can do a present evaluation on what are the stumbling blocks that need fixing to get the market vendors better profitability and become more energized to stay in business.

Zaid Amin.
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