By Adrian Smith
Monday marked the end of four nights of the Berbice Exposition and Trade Fair as the Central Corentyne Chambers of Commerce celebrated its fourth annual event.
Stabroek News spoke with a number of exhibitors during the expo. M. Budhram from Ansa McAl said that the Berbice Expo has helped them to showcase their products and find prospective buyers. Several persons attending were also interested in making purchases and seeing what they had as they gave out samples of some of their products.
There were also lots of local craft products and one exhibitor who only wanted to be referred to as Saywack told Stabroek News that “the people are not responding to the crafts.” She said that it was expected that craft would have been the main attraction at the Expo, but this was not to be. She also said that business in general “was not like last year. Last year people were spending more than this year.” The reason for this, she suggested, was “maybe because it (sugar) is out of crop.”
Another exhibitor, Anthony’s Creation, said that business was not as good as it was last year, and although people have been coming out in their numbers, sales have been less than previous years.
Celina Webster of Food King International said that the “people are not interested in local products.” She told Stabroek News that at a time when the government is encouraging citizens to grow more food people should have been more responsive to the call by supporting locally produced food. Referring to a decrease in spending power by people at this year’s exposition, she pointed to the “out of crop” season and other events in Berbice happening simultaneously, “like the Wild Fire Show and so.” Those events, she told Stabroek News, take away from the already low spending power of the people. “They (Berbicians) shouldn’t have forsaken their local activity for the foreign one.”
Best thing
One parent with her children, Cheryl Braithwaite, told Stabroek News that this Berbice Expo is the best thing that has happened for Berbicians. She said usually in Berbice there is not much to do for recreation, and events like this where there is activity for children as well as adults make it comfortable for the family. She hoped that it would continue as she expects to invite other relatives to come for it next year.
And C. Baldeo said that he feels that more activities like this should be planned and “they should be more often.” He said that if people can be assured of these activities then they would plan for them well in advance. He said that he was there for the four nights but did not se any “incident like fights or suh.” “As long as people don’t fight they gon bring out they family and might even invite friends from outside fuh come,” he told Stabroek News.
Bhigroog Poonai, president of the Central Corentyne Chambers of Commerce, told Stabroek News on the closing night that this year’s exposition has been “bigger and better” despite a few setbacks they have had from “some major sponsors who had other commitments.”
In response to the comments made by some exhibitors about the “out of crop season” negatively affecting their sales, Poonai said that it was their desire to hold the event during Guysuco’s harvesting season, but earlier in the year the rain and other factors affected harvesting and as a result the season could not have started as planned.
While a few persons assumed that persons may not have been interested in some products as the producers were not from Berbice, Poonai said that the Central Corentyne Chambers of Commerce did not want to limit the exposition to Berbice but “to go further afield” as the Chambers “expects it [the Expo] to get bigger each year.” Generally, he said, the CCCC was very satisfied with the proceedings over the four nights. Everyone had benefits, he said, as they employed over 80 persons for the four nights.
Berbicians will get their heart’s desire because, according to Poonai, from September 5th – 8th the Central Corentyne Chambers of Commerce will hold a Festival of India where exhibitors from India will showcase and display their products.
There were over 25,000 persons in attendance at this year’s event in Berbice, and Poonai expressed gratitude to all those persons and organizations who came onboard and helped to make the expo a success.
