“Our island markets rely heavily on cargo moving through the ports and our industry depends on this to be a smooth process. The recent news of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s decision to waive the requirement to purchase iron, steel, and other construction materials for Guam, CNMI, and the Freely Associated States from domestic sources, is welcome news particularly right now for Guam as we look to replace our aged gantry crane at the port.  Without this waiver, it would have made it more difficult to find a replacement in a shorter period of time and at an affordable cost.

Another challenge that is not unique to our industry is the impact of low visitor arrivals that has not recovered since 2019. 

Our industry continues to face ongoing challenges in the region with logistics, product availability, and manufacturer price increases.  We do our best to get ahead of these hurdles when it is made known, but often times there isn’t much that can be done since we are a small market. However, a large number of our supplier partners do what they can to hold off on passing price increases when domestic market prices rise, but they are not able to sustain it for long periods of time.”

—Jesse Santos, general manager for D&Q Co. Ltd. He was responding to questions on the wholesale industry in the March-April issue of Guam Business Magazine.