MOST Western Australian businesses operating in areas affected by the devastating Boxing Day earthquake and tsunamis appear to have been relatively unscathed by the disaster.
MOST Western Australian businesses operating in areas affected by the devastating Boxing Day earthquake and tsunamis appear to have been relatively unscathed by the disaster.
The tsunami ravaged coastlines in Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Maldives, Indonesia, and parts of Malaysia, Burma and Africa.
Two Western Australian busi-nesses with operations in the affected regions spoken to by WA Business News this week – engineering firm Clough and Atlantic Pearls – both reported minimal damage.
A spokesman for Atlantic Pearls, a Perth-based listed pearling company with pearl farms off the Burmese coast, said minor damage to some of its long lines had already been repaired.
A representative from Clough said no personnel or operations around the west coast of India had been affected.
Western Australia Trade Office Indonesia regional director Trevor Boughton, who is coordinating the arrival and dispersal of 70 tonnes of aid in Indonesia that left WA last week, agreed that few companies from this State would have been operating in the affected parts of Indonesia.
He said the political situation had made the province of Aceh, one of the areas hardest hit, a no-go zone for most Westerners and businesses for several years.
However, like many other affected countries, this could eventually change, Mr Broughton said.
He said there would be a significant amount of rebuilding work required in Aceh.
Infrastructure such as bridges, harbours and low-cost housing would be needed, as well as environmental and waste manage-ment skills. Even town planning may be called for because entire villages had to be rebuilt, Mr Broughton said.
The Indonesia Government’s latest estimate to reconstruct Aceh is $A1.6 billion, while other estimates have put the cost of rebuilding the entire region as high as $US13.5 billion.
Mr Boughton said major aid agencies would have large budgets for the reconstruction effort.
Currently business from around the world was donating less permanent items, he said, but aid agencies would begin awarding rebuilding contracts after the emergency response wound down, he said.
Western Australian companies interested in the rebuilding effort are urged to check the major aid agencies’ websites, as well as registering with the Western Australia Trade Office in Indonesia.
One Perth business aware of the rebuilding effort is former Perth stockbroker Anthony Maslin’s renewable energy company Solco.
Mr Maslin said the rebuilding effort could fast-track his company’s plans to create a solar energy-driven water purification business.
Solco is going ahead with plans to install its solar-powered water purifier in the Maldives on January 15 at the community’s behest.
“We’ve spoken to the island chief and he wants us to go ahead with it,” Mr Maslin said.
