Building material sales down

THE FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC downturn is weakening the sales of traders in the most solid construction materials to as much as 90 per cent compared to previous years. Dealers in concrete blocks, sand, gravel and cement, have reported that demand for these foundational components in construction was depressed and they could do nothing to inflate it. They noted they just had to wait for the construction boom to return.Chief executive officer of Black Bess Quarry Wayne Manning said: “Sales are very, very depressed. Sales at Bess Block Inc. [are] down 90 per cent, at the quarry, 30 per cent; in contracting, 50 per cent; and in concrete at our Premix & Precast Concrete Inc., 50 per cent.”General manager of Ready Block Limited John Inniss described the current level of sales at his company as “horrible”.“I’ve never seen it so bad,” he stressed, adding, “the demand for blocks is down and there are more players in the market.”When asked what Ready Block was doing to improve the company’s fortunes, he pointed out that it had already reduced its prices “to where we can go down no more”.“The market is just not there because of the downturn in the construction industry,” he stressed.Walkers Sand Quarry in St Andrew, the supplier of the majority of the island’s sand, was also experiencing financial throes as a result of the ailing construction industry.Quarry manager Ricardo Payne said business was a bit slow. “Sales are down 25 per cent to 30 per cent on last year. And last year’s sales were down 20 per cent on the year before,” he said.Payne noted that between 2008 and 2009 the developers of the upscale Apes Hill development in St James purchased large volumes of sand for the laying of a golf course there, and the Four Seasons construction project also bought a significant quantity of sand from Walkers Sand Quarry.“There is nothing much that we can do to improve sales because sales are driven by construction and a lot of projects are on hold,” Payne said.Livingstone Carter, managing director of Rocklyn Hardware Supplies in St Andrew said he had been considering advertising to attract business.“Contractors usually buy cement by the pallet, but we have not seen that recently,” he added. (SR)