The president of the National Federation of Retail Merchants (Fenacodep), Fausto Figuereo, said yesterday that merchants continue to be affected by the high cost of electricity bills and crime, on the occasion of the 46th anniversary of that institution.
Figuereo affirmed that there are hundreds of men at the counter and the balance that are still working under this scenario, endangering the permanence of their businesses.
“Retailers continue to suffer from the same electricity problems that we shared in the 80s, 90s and 2000s, which are still latent, without transparency when generating the bill to a small business and our own home”Figuereo declared to the press at the building of the Association of Wholesale Merchants.
Regarding crime, he said that the colmaderos have had to close their businesses several hours earlier than usual due to the threat of crime in the national territory.
He commented that they used to open from 7:00 in the morning to 11:00 at night. However, now they close at 9:00 at night to avoid robberies and theft of merchandise by the unscrupulous.
Also, he took advantage of the space to ask for better opportunities for retailers, explaining that they often get sick and do not have the necessary savings for those purposes. He added that they also do not have a Social Security system that covers the old age of direct or indirect contributors.
About MSMEs
Figuereo stressed that in Latin America there is no real interest in developing Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), despite the jobs they can generate.
In this context, he referred that they are the ones who are most forced in the tax burden, saying that they have to assume a cost of energy and high rents “In addition to having a Labor Code that does not benefit the worker and in the midst of all these evils, crime also surrounds us.”
Fenacodep is a founding member of the Retail Trade Organization of the Americas, which was founded in Puerto Rico in 1991, participating with our Retail colleagues from the Continent in the congresses that we celebrate every year in a different country, we have realized that problems are common, with very few exceptions.
Reduction of working capital
The president of the United Retailers Group, Ricardo Rosario, declared that the interest rate management policy rose in the United States and that this was immediately reflected in the country.
He described this measure as a preservative by the monetary board to try to curb inflation. However, he indicated that this caused the currency to be reduced rapidly, making purchases difficult, while affecting the colmaderos, as well as the companies that supply the products, since sales to the productive sectors are reduced.
“Of course, this reduction in working capital has an immediate part in sales and as a result, we grocery stores have to recognize that it is affecting us from the point of view of working capital and the companies that supply us know that they have reduced the purchase” , argued Rosario, during the anniversary of Fenacodep.
Members
Fenacodep has more than 30,000 members, they are distributed in 102 business associations throughout the national geography.
Likewise, its purpose is to compete with the large commercial chains, to offer better prices to the consumer and they have dozens of supply stores covering the entire country, selling billions of pesos a year.
It should be noted that it seeks to promote the development and modernization of grocery stores and their institutional structure (associations, regional blocks and management bodies: congress, national council and executive committee).