The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

A Chamber of Commerce director has warned there will “absolutely” be permanent business closures across the Bahamian economy once it emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tara Morley, who is also the Bahamas Federation of Retailers (BFR) co-president, told Tribune Business of the likely impact on the retail sector: “I think probably the scariest thing right now is that there is no end in sight. So it’s very unclear who is going to be able to make it depending on the duration of this worldwide crisis coming out of this.

“In addition to the stress of the global crisis, it’s the obvious impact on our local economy. That is even more stressful given that we are so reliant on tourism. I think especially given the fact that we already had one crisis this year with Hurricane Dorian, and then having to deal with this there is certainly going to be some business fall-out after this period.

“With that said, it will depend on the category of retailers. For instance, grocers are still going to be going strong, the same way with pharmacies, and with a tonne of reconstruction efforts going on for Dorian I would imagine that the contractors are going to be OK as well. But there is a lot of uncertainty. Goods that are considered non-essential may have a larger fall-out like gift items, jewellery and clothing,” Ms Morley added.

“It is really unclear, and especially for categories that are reliant upon tourism shoppers, they are obviously going to be experiencing difficulties for quite some time. So we will see by the end of the day where it may all shake out in the end.”

As for Bay Street and downtown Nassau, Ms Morley added: “The resurgence of downtown is going to be heavily reliant on when borders are going to be re-opened, and given that cruise ships have suffered tremendously during this period considering that they have had really bad experiences with COVID-19 on-board, again it is unclear on when that business is going to come back here.”

“We are really going to be reliant on the whole world coming together to identify a vaccine or a treatment, or some form of rapid testing, so that we can at least survive somewhat from a full economic shutdown until they at least can identify a vaccine. Basically it is extremely uncertain.”