From October 30th-31st, Afreximbank held the second annual AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF) in Georgetown, Guyana under the theme “Creating a Shared Prosperous Future.”

Key focus areas for ACTIF23 included accelerating private sector investment, improving infrastructure, financing, and trade logistics, and promoting trade, tourism, and regional integration.

Additionally, the forum served to highlight the significant progress made by the Afreximbank-CARICOM Partnership namely, the Afreximbank Board of Directors’ approval of US $1.5 billion in funding for CARICOM member states that have ratified the Partnership Agreement to access the Bank’s financial instruments, and the CARICOM Development Fund becoming Bank’s first CARICOM shareholder.

As we welcome the convening of the Africa-Trade and Investment Forum, 2022 to Barbados, the SRC supports the efforts to establish deeper trade relations between CARICOM and Africa. Check out what we have done so far.

The SRC is pleased to share the work of the P.J. Patterson Institute for Africa-Caribbean Advocacy at The University of the West Indies, which aims to centralize and coordinate its relations with African peoples, governments, universities, and institutions through a specialized institutional agreement. See here for more information.

Read the publication from the International Trade Centre (ITC) on Expanding African-Caribbean Trade.

From the Savannah to the Sea: Connecting Kenya and Barbados through Trade and Investment

By Dr. Jan Yves Remy and Chelcee Brathwaite

On the side lines of the UNCTAD XV Conference hosted by Barbados on 3-7 October 2021,  a growing courtship between Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley and Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta was entering a new phase. While trade officials were busy negotiating the final text of the Bridgetown Covenant at the UNCTAD XV plenary session, Barbados was also playing host to a high-level Kenyan contingent of officials and business persons at a Kenya-Barbados Business Forum.  The Forum was organized for the Kenyans and their Barbadian counterparts to exchange best practices and consider business opportunities in the fields of finance and investment; telecommunications and digitization; travel and tourism; energy; transportation and logistics; and biotechnology and bio trade.  The Forum appears to have been successful and culminated in the signing of three agreements: an Air Services Agreement; a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in the Establishment of a Joint Committee on Trade and Investment; and an MOU in the Development of the National Botanical Garden. In this SRC Trading Thoughts we explore what business and trade opportunities might truly lie in the growing ties between Barbados and Kenya.

The SRC is pleased to share our Caribbean-Africa Webinar Series Rapporteur’s Note. It is the first output from the informative series we cohosted with Tralac, Trapca and AfronomicsLaw over a period of five weeks in June and July 2021. The rapporteur’s note, which was authored by the series’ moderators Ms. Kholofelo Kugler (Co-Founder, Trade Policy Exchange) and our own SRC Director Dr. Jan Yves Remy, provides a background to the series and the major conclusions from each of the webinars. The series was formally opened with a Keynote address by H.E. Wamkele Mene, Secretary-General of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

We are particularly happy to release this Rapporteur’s Note to coincide with the hosting of the Africa-CARICOM Summit on September 7, 2021 and as our contribution to the wider discourse on deepening Africa-Caribbean relations.