Greenlanders find nothing to buy in Iqaluit

Managers from Greenland’s largest retail chain, Pilersuisoq, came to Iqaluit last week to see what Nunavut had to offer.

Pilersuisoq was the sole company from Greenland at this year’s Nunavut Trade Show.

“We have no trade with Nunavut,” said Pilersuisoq’s supply manager, Bernhard Christensen. “We wanted to see if there are any trade possibilities with Nunavut, but I don’t think it’s looking very good because they have no manufactured products.”

Handicrafts, furs and fish are available in Greenland. What Pilersuisoq seeks for its stores is merchandise that can’t be found locally — manufactured items or fresh produce.

“But there are no tomato plants in Iqaluit,” Christensen said.

Pilersuisoq is interested in products such as nikkuk, which are in short supply in Greenland, but Christensen said Nunavut wouldn’t be able to meet the demand.

However, even without obvious candidates for trade between Greenland and Nunavut, Christensen said it would be good to have a regular air link between Greenland and Canada.

“At least we would have the opportunity to see what we could be interested in buying,” Christensen said.

To attend the trade fair in Iqaluit, Pilersuisoq’s five-person delegation had to travel from Sisiumiut via charter.

In the past, Pilersuisoq has bought bikes and apples from Canada, but now, whatever the company buys must be sent via one of the five ships that travel annually between Greenland and Canada.

Pilersuisoq operates stores, distributes fuel, Nuuk Imeq brand soft drinks and beer, and provides banking, post office and travel services throughout Greenland. Prices are uniform throughout the entire network of stores.

It has 1,400 employees, 95 per cent of them Greenlandic.

The company, owned by Greenland’s Home Rule Government, is the second largest company in Greenland and does $200 million worth of business in its grocery division alone.

Founded in 1992, Pilersuisoq only started making a profit in 1996. Recently, it began handing over its services to the private sector in Greenland’s six largest communities.

“There’s no tradition of private business in Greenland,” Christensen said.

Pilersuisoq still has a monopoly on retail and fuel services in Greenland’s 53 smaller settlements and in many of its 12 towns.

But the company wants to become more competitive — even if this competition is internal.

“Traditional monopolies do not question their own mode of operation, and there is a risk that they will not be able to review and improve services of their own accord,” says Pilersuisoq’s new action plan, called “A time for Action.”

Since 1998, the company has allocated more money to educate its employees.

Improving literacy and citizenship among consumers is also among its goals. Pilersuisoq founded the “northernmost internet café in the world in Inaarsuit.”

Although it’s a government-owned company, Pilersuisoq seems to promote the kind of aims that are usually associated with cooperatives — and wants to “contribute to the creation of values for individual citizens and for society as a whole.”