Perry’s Customs and Shipping Agency – Operating like family

Everybody here is like family.” That’s how Jennie Thomas, an independent trader, feels about Perry’s Customs and Shipping Agency, a brokerage firm with whom she has been doing business for over two decades.

Located in Kingstown, directly across the road from the Physical Planning Department, the firm, owned and operated by Perry Burke and a staff of six, has been in business for just over 30 years.

He started it in 1984, alongside a brother, who later migrated. At that time, there were about four major brokers, “Now you have probably over 200 independent brokers, some of them who learned through trial and error and others who would have left other customs and shipping agencies and started their own business,” Burke tells SEARCHLIGHT, explaining how the business has changed over those three plus decades.

The firm does “entries to clear stuff coming into St Vincent for persons; shipping documents to ship out goods to any part of the world, and if anybody wants information, we can get that for them,” Burke adds.

They are busiest in the agency Mondays and Fridays, as they process documents for fresh produce traders who do business in Trinidad and Barbados.

Burke points out that “they would call, or some of them would walk in, tell you what they are shipping, or what they have coming in from Trinidad or Barbados and they want their entries done … today, to come out today.”

This is because foreign exchange issues have pushed traders to adjust, so they now purchase manufactured goods from these two countries for resale on the local market in order to obtain cash to pay their creditors and make a living.

Burke has been in this field of work ever since leaving secondary school, first at the Customs and Excise Department and later, the East Caribbean Flour Mills as their Customs clerk, so he has experienced a number of changes – both positive and negative.

One new development which he has welcomed is the establishment – after several years – of an Association of Customs Brokers, registered a year ago, which Burke thinks can add value to the work they do.

… And, one change he is hoping for is to have the Customs and Excise Department close for business on Saturdays, while extending opening hours during weekdays.

In the Best of SVG 2017 Awards, Perry’s won the award for Best Customs Broker, and, a grateful Burke is sure that his service to clients has made the difference; whether it’s the personal touch, or the routine procedures undertaken with due care and attention to detail in a short turnaround time.

“Let’s put it this way,” he says, “there are times when old people come in here and they sit down and they’re blowing and you could see that they are tired.

“Sometimes, we will offer them tea; if we have sandwiches, we offer them a sandwich and tea and we tell them ‘sit down, don’t move’ and we go over, we clear their stuff for them, bring it out, put it under the gallery there; or, we tell them ‘go and get your vehicle…the stuff is over there’ and that’s it.”

Perry’s Customs and Shipping Agency can be reached at telephone number: 455-2920. Opening hours are 8 a.m. – 4 p.m. Monday to Friday and 8.30 a.m. – 11.30 a.m. Saturdays.