The strain of the effects of Tropical Cyclone Winston is not just on individuals and our agriculture sector, but spreads out to businesses and the supply and demand sides.

Because of the massive ration and relief item distribution, do not be surprised if there are companies who come out admitting they are struggling to meet the demand.

Demand not only locally but also in exports.

The power outages, especially in the Western Division, has impacted many production businesses – whether the cyclone passed the areas or not.

As a result of the disruptions, there are companies who have lost production hours and because of the high demand for goods for distribution, it means there might be short supply or rationing in terms of supply.

Pleass Global, the company behind Aqua Safe and VaiWai, has already had to limit the number of bottled water it supplies to supermarkets.

This is because the demand is extremely high while for supply, they have been limited as a result of just one week of power outage following the Cyclone Winston.

They are now catching up on production, but local supply and exports have been affected.

In the weeks to come, there may be other companies, if not already, who would face challenges as far as exports are concerned.

As it stands, Fiji already had an increasing trade deficit meaning we were importing more than we were exporting.

The flow-on effects of the cyclone could increase our trade deficit figures significantly.

Naturally there will be an increase in certain products, including agriculture to make up for the low or short supply in the market currently.

Most of the agriculture products were destroyed in the cyclone and therefore now it is hard to meet the demand.

Pleass Global would be just one of the many businesses out there. Whilst generators were an option, for some companies, production requires a lot of energy and generators would not have been capable of this production.

Therefore, it is critical that all Fijians brace themselves for supply constraints as this is something which is bound to happen.

Some companies might have to resort to longer production hours to make up for the lost hours and short supply of stock.

All we can do is brace for what is yet to come as aftermath of Tropical Cyclone Winston.

Feedback:  rachnal@fijisun.com.fj