Business View Caribbean | Volume 9, Issue 3

26 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN VOLUME 9, ISSUE 3 import some from China, Brazil, and the United States. However, it depends on the delivery time, availability and pricing, especially now with COVID.” With the majority of the materials being local, PolyROCK qualifies for CARICOM duty free concessions, which is a big selling point for Omega. When it comes to customers for PolyROCK cement boards, 100 percent of the local distribution is done by Kelvin Ghany Enterprises (a large hardware store in Trinidad and Tobago). Omega is currently the only cement board manufacturer in the Caribbean. As a result they increased exports in 2021 across the region and currently supply products to Suriname, Grenada, Barbados, Dominica, St. Lucia and Antigua. They are slowly gaining market share in Guyana, as they continue to look for potential partners to work alongside. It was a natural evolution, from manufacturing different types of housing systems, to doing steel framed housing, and then on to manufacturing the PolyROCK cement boards. The Omega team is also now working on a cement panel system, which essentially uses cold-formed steel and cellular concrete filled lightweight cement panels. This system, though still in development, will be even faster to construct. Although these may be lightweight systems, they are extremely strong and able to withstand severe weather, as a result of outstanding engineering. Agostini notes, “We have supplied some houses in Dominica that are rated for up to category five hurricanes. These houses were designed slightly different to those houses we built in Trinidad, however, once engineered accordingly, a category five rating can be achieved using a steel framed system.” Omega Manufacturing has about 30 full-time and part-time employees, including engineers –a relatively small team but big on talent. The company had to close twice for numerous months during the pandemic, and in that time they did their best to continue paying the staff,