by Christopher Lowe

There are Bahamian businesses that have been importing goods from china for years now, but the reality is that it is only viable in a very limited number of products.

More significant however is the recent implementation of a standards act to supposedly “protect” Bahamian consumers from inferior imported products. While at the same time we are looking to import goods from a country that still has a long way to go with regards to quality especially if the buyers “agent” is not standing nearby to ensure quality conformity.

China will produce any quality of whatever you want to buy in large quantities and are masters at increasing their profit margin by reducing quality preproduction.

And lets not talk about the instruction manuals that start out written in chinese, and get translated into english by the Japanese! U.L. listing as an example is an option, as is any other countries standard so hadn’t we better define our own?

China is not the panacea that politicians wish to convince us of, but then they are not business minded are they.

You better bet the Chinese are though.

Quite a few Bahamian businesses have been burned in china and I have a feeling that more will, especially as we are used to U.S. standards and brands, and although manufactured in china, big brother the U.S. is the market to be satisfied. We would be wise to piggy back their methods.

On a final note, buying cheap is not the whole picture, supply and demand and inventory turns are more critical in small markets.

Do we want to wait 3 months for plywood from china post hurricane when we can get chinese plywood from Florida in two days?

I think we should let the natural avenues of business prevail and innovate instead of letting atificial criteria sink our collective boat.