Business is slow at the moment  and cost of doing business is high: says Vinay Kumar

Suva City is a very dynamic place, with a booming city comes challenges and issues, says Vinay Kumar.

The Suva Retailers Association president, Vinay Kumar, made this comment after the association’s board meeting on Thursday night.

“Today (Thursday night) we had a very successful meeting and a lot of issues that were not resolved in the past were brought up,” Mr Kumar said.

“The issue of traffic, we were just discussing that some lights in town are affecting traffic, so it becomes a backlog for cars because people are taking long, sometimes takes nearly an hour just to go a couple of kilometres in the City.

“This affects business in a way that customers are double-minded whether to come into town or not. That’s why there are mushroom cities coming up, like Damodar city.”

Mr Kumar said while this was good for the public, it was the retailers who were feeling the pinch with their business getting affected.

“As it is business is slow at the moment, we don’t know what’s causing this, it could be various reasons, but we don’t know exactly.

“The cost of doing business is really high now, cost of compliance is high and there are tighter regulations.

-The cost of business is getting expensive due to high rents and compliance. The regulations are stringent now which is beneficial for all parties,” Mr Kumar said.

“I want to see growth happening in this city, growth is happening, but retailers are feeling the pinch of compliance and these are strategic issues.”

Mr Kumar said they were starting off from minor issues such as rubbish collection, traffic issues, cost of compliance, because rent had gone up in the past two years and cost of their business had gone up as well.

“These are small issues but are bread and butter issues it is important for retailers especially the small medium enterprises. For example, when there’s a lot of information, it becomes cumbersome for business owners because they have to operate their shops as well. So we are trying to facilitate that by organising workshops with relevant stakeholders so that these small and medium enterprises could ask questions they need answered.”

The association’s secretary, Selva Reddy, said issues came with challenges and they must, as an association, address those issues.

“This committee we are just discussing how we can progress from what the last committee had left,” Mr Reddy said.

“This meeting we have already come up with ways that we can address these issues with the relevant authorities involved.

“We are optimistic that with a mixture of old and new board members, we can do much better.”

Mr Kumar said the Government had also facilitated the desires of business people in the City by passing a regulation that allows businesses to operate at any day and time.

Mr Reddy said the association, with business in mind, was also aware of their social responsibilities.

“We gave $30,000 to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund to help those affected by Cyclone Winston,” he said.

The association held their elections last week Thursday. The new board members are:

Executive Committee:

President- Vinay Kumar (Mahesh Syndicate)

Vice Presidents – Jitesh Patel (C.K. Patel), Raju Raniga (Govinda Restaurant) and Jiten Patel (R.C. Manubhai Limited)

Secretary- Selva Reddy (Pacific Bookstore)

Treasurer- Vinod Kumar (Sports World)

Board Members:

Nilesh Patel (Maharani Limited)

Rakesh Bulsara (Bulsara Store)

Kishore Maneklal (J. Maneklal)

Sean Chow (Onyx Limited)

Rajnesh Lala (Lala’s Bargain Centre)

Vinod Kumar (Sports World).

Salendra Narayan (Jedi Stationery)

Paresh Chauhan (Memsaab)

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