Local Trinidad Scrap Metal Dealers Fighting For Life

Its a scene, seen only too often. Local dealers being crushed by big international players. The have reach, they have money, and they have resources… and you have, well patriotism.

Same thing in Trinidad. The local mom and pop scrap metal dealers are now complaining that the international companies that were supposed to be there temporarily, have now set up shop and are giving them stiff competition.

Scrap metal is big business in the Caribbean! | Photo by Docman

Erros Seejattan, vice president of the T&T Scrap Iron Dealers Association says;

“We have dealers from India, Pakistan, Argentina, China and all over the world. They were supposed to come here to buy scrap from us and ship it away. After the State of Emergency in 2011, they asked the government for licences to ship the material away. They got licences but it is the same licence we have as dealers, so instead of using to it to ship away they used it to start opening their own yards here and cutting us out by going directly to our customers. We were unable to compete with them as we sell to them.”

We hope it is resolved soon, because as ‘the Mecca‘and ‘most industrilialized country‘ in the Caribbean we wouldn’t want this to turn turn out nasty.