Business View Caribbean | June 2019

47 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN JUNE 2019 Business View Caribbean recently spoke with Managing Director of Quality Incorporations VII Ltd., Krishna Vaswani, for an overview of the company’s operations, achievements, and secrets for success. The following is an edited transcript of the conversation. BVC: How is the business climate in Jamaica… is your company experiencing growth? Vaswani: “Jamaica has been on an upward trajectory. Major infrastructure investments and private sector investments have spurred a level of growth. We have been fitting into that because we have made some investments for a higher sustainable footprint in our overall growth perspective. Currently, 70 percent of our production is recycled paper and 100 percent of our inputs are FSC certified. We’ve basically altered the way we grow and invest. “We are very integrated in our distribution approach. We have both local and regional distributors and do our own inhouse distributing. Delivery is all contracted, we’re in the manufacturing business not the trucking business. We have grown in Jamaica about 10 to 15 percent in the last couple years and our export footprint has grown, as well. We’ve gotten into more consistent markets such as Barbados, Belize, and the Bahamas.” BVC: What are the biggest challenges for your manufacturing sector? Vaswani: “Jamaica is a place where we have B2B2B, so you’re catering directly, or indirectly, to smaller customers and large $100,000 customers. We used to be fairly big in the hospitality market but we’ve found, with some of the chains, negative competition has been taking place and people who are not directly involved in the day-to-day production of tissue are importing, selling, and costing these products at a negative rate, which is not attractive for us. To stay in business we have to supply good business. So, we don’t take anything on unless the terms are mutually agreeable. “The thing about Jamaica, we are in a floating currency. Where you have negative swings of 10 QUAL I TY INCORPORAT IONS V I I LTD .