Post-Cyclone Matthew Needs Assessment: Trade and Industry Sector

The commerce volume of the post-Matthew needs assessment, prepared by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry with its partners. It builds on the rapid DALA assessment conducted with the IDB and the World Bank, which measured damage and losses to commercial and industrial firms in the affected zones, and extends it.

Damage to firms in the affected areas comes to nearly 6,266,550,349 gourdes, and losses to about 7,171,824,485.4 gourdes, for a sector total of 13,439,377,834.5 gourdes. The composition is the point: losses exceed damage, and the losses consist of economic flows including production and stock deficits rather than destroyed assets. A firm can lose more from the interruption than from the physical damage, which is why a reconstruction figure alone understates what the sector needs.

The volume also treats human and social impact in commerce and industry as its own section, and sets out the industrial activities present in the affected departments, so recovery is framed around the activities that existed rather than around aggregate value.