Steel in the Works
equivalent of the GIDC back then, were very Grenada Steel Works and its sister instrumental in offering us a full range of company in Grenada, ‘Concord Distributors’, ecades of public awareness concessions to make our move attractive a one stop shop, for all Building and campaigns about preparing homes and viable. We still receive raw material Hardware needs, are owned by the largest for the Caribbean hurricane season concessions from government today which private owned company in Guyana, ‘The means that at some point the ‘plan in is vital to our existence and survival,” says Gafsons Group of Companies’. Executive advance’ message indeed hits home. And one Sears. chariman, Omar Gafoor, son of the late local Company is doing all it can to help with Like many companies the global economic founder Abdool Gafoor, has spearheaded the the fundamentals. Grenada Steel Works (GSW) manufacturers of top quality roofing materials, spotted a flaw after hurricane Ivan swept through the island in 2004. “After the devastation of Hurricane Ivan, I observed that the roofing material itself held up to the conditions, but what failed was the way in which the roofing material was fastened to the perlins, and Mr. Jai Sears, Managing Director on the left and Mr. Omar Gafoor, Executive Chairman for Gafsons Group Grenada, St.Lucia and Barbados whether screws meltdown has had a negative impact on prolific expansion of the company, creating (recommended) or nails were used, that’s Grenada Steel Works, with the company why so many people lost roofs. It had nothing the largest manufacturing, hardware and operating at only 25 percent of its capacity. construction consortium in Guyana today. to do with the roofing material itself,” says “When the going was good before the world GSW has been operating in Grenada for over Jai Sears, the Guyana born, Director of GSW. recession, we used to import 3-4 million ecd 25 years and before 2004, was arguably the The company currently makes U panel & per year in rebar and roofing sheet. We are number one exporter of roofing materials in corrugated profiles and do a variety of widths part of the ASTM American standard and the Caribbean, with export sales in excess of from 36” – 48” and any custom width in 4 million EC dollars a year. “When we opened the British standard too. Since the onset of between that the customer may require. They the recession we have seen these numbers here in Grenada back in 1987 we were the can also do any length the client wants but drop significantly and it continues to drop as only roofing company on island. We were usually recommend that 25’ is the maximum other countries install their own plants and invited to set up here by the then interim length, as it gets difficult to transport with competition increases both domestically and Government of Nicholas Brathwaite and the longer lengths and becomes hard to handle.
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