Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.
by Mark Hill
This week, stakeholders across the public and private sectors from Africa and the Caribbean will gather at the
first-ever AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum 2022 (ACTIF2022), from September 1-3, organised by the Government of Barbados and the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank).
As chief executive officer of Export Barbados (BIDC), I am pleased to be comanaging ACTIF2022 along with our sister agency, Invest Barbados. Our goal is to strengthen the relationship between Africa and the Caribbean, particularly regarding trade and investment.
As we prepare for the historic event, it is anticipated hundreds of investors, manufacturers, and traders will come together to discuss solidifying the links established centuries ago between Africa and the Caribbean through the transatlantic slave trade.
After slavery was abolished, trade between the regions virtually ceased. Still, the two regions have a shared history, culture, and sense of common identity that cannot be ignored.
On that basis, we have joined forces with Afreximbank to reunite our regions. The theme we chose for ACTIF2022, “One People, One Destiny: Uniting and Reimagining Our Future” is therefore apt.
We envision that this forum will be the springboard for concrete collaborations. We hope to see significant B2B and B2G contracts and arrangements materialise over the next five years and the strengthening of bilateral and regional trade agreements across jurisdictions.
Building Bridges: The Key to Success
The building blocks to make our goal a reality will be put into place, particularly the capacity to move capital between the two jurisdictions as effectively as possible.
The forum is critical in addressing the many roadblocks preventing us from moving capital around. In that respect, EXIM banks, for example, can become intermediary banking platforms that allow us to move capital between the Caribbean and Africa, thus becoming a bridge between the two economies.
It is also anticipated that the logistics bridges, air and sea transport, will be built. Those negotiations are already underway, and that forum is possible because Ethiopia Airlines is providing a direct chartered return flight between Africa and Barbados to facilitate delegates planning to attend ACTIF2022. On the marine side, the Bridgetown Port is also negotiating with several ports in Africa, and other ports throughout the Caribbean are expected to follow suit.
Opportunities Abound
There are multiple opportunities African and Caribbean businesses and investors can capitalize on through the new linkages formed during ACTIF2022 and after. Across the world, we have been grappling with the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, and, most recently, the war in Ukraine, leading to rising oil prices and inflation.
There is no better time than now for the countries of the Caribbean and Africa to seek to build new, lasting economic relationships.
For Caribbean businesses seeking to trade with their African counterparts, they must, first and foremost, pay attention to the supply side and their capacity to meet the demand as well as strengthen their relationship with the various distributors in the chosen markets.
To assist with that, Export Barbados will be launching marketing campaigns across African markets, particularly for Barbados products.
We expect all the Caribbean trade promotion agencies to drive the marketing of their products to meet the demand in Africa. Also, regarding the small and medium-sized enterprises side, there are many opportunities, particularly on the digital and service fronts, to build critical relationships fundamental for growth within the African market.
Collaboration and consolidation are key for the Caribbean to penetrate the African market. Rather than each Caribbean country shipping products into Africa, we can consolidate goods from multiple businesses across multiple countries and move together.
That way, we share the costs, and all the businesses participating get to benefit. Barbados is positioning itself as a hub for the consolidation, and we anticipate it will have significant value added.
However, it largely depends on regional businesses having strong distributor relationships to move the products for them. They will also have to decide what approach they will take to go into the market: franchising, licensing, joint venture, or the traditional distributorship mechanism.
Africa is a good source market for commodities and downstream raw materials. Take shea butter, for example. That product goes off to China, where the value added happens and then gets shipped to the Caribbean. Instead, Africa can send many of its bulk raw materials to the Caribbean and use the region as a nearshoring opportunity. The Caribbean can then push those African products into the Latin American and North American markets, leveraging the various trade treaties we have access to.
Collaborative opportunities exist in life sciences, agriculture, research and development, design services, and the blue economy, to name a few. Those are specific niche areas that are good for the short and medium, and with strategic pivots, for the long term.
Mark Hill is chief executive officer of Export Barbados. (BIDC) and co-manager of ACTIF2022.
