CONCRETE suppliers who export will be asked to focus more on supplying the demanding domestic market, amid a shortage of concrete blocks during an unprecedented period of construction.
Attorney-General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum said local suppliers were not able to meet domestics demands, though some of them were supplying the more lucrative export market.
“So, we hope to in the next couple of weeks, have a discussion with them to see if they can provide their focus on supplying the local market first, the local demand -in particular for the Help for Homes initiative.”
With about five major suppliers of concrete blocks, demands from hardware companies range from 250,000 to a million blocks.
“There is unprecedented construction taking place in Fiji at the moment. So as you know, with the tenders for a number of schools already given out, we have a lot of factories being built at the moment and hotels being built.
“So there is a lot of pressure on the supply side of things and we hope to talk to some of these major suppliers to see if they can, at least for the next few weeks, focus more on fulfilling the demands of the local market.”
Sayed-Khaiyum noted that this would address the many instances of non-deliveries and partial-deliveries of hardware material.