Barbados on Wednesday welcomed its first direct Ethiopian Airlines flight from Lagos, Nigeria which was specially arranged to bring in delegates for the inaugural AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ATIF2022) that officials hope will result in new opportunities and investment for businesses here.
The flight touched down at the Grantley Adams International Airport around 10:30 a.m. with 103 passengers, including delegates and media personnel, on board.
More than 1 000 people have registered for the September 1-3 forum which is being jointly hosted by the Government of Barbados and the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.
Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Sandra Husbands described ATIF2022 as ground-breaking, noting that it signalled the start of a new relationship between the African continent and Barbados and the Caribbean.
She said the conference will provide Barbadian-based businesses with a larger market to offer their products and services.
“What this does is it helps us to diversify our reliance on a purely south-north programme, which means that if you have all of your goods going to a narrow group of markets and you have a narrow group of products then you are highly vulnerable to anything happening to either one product or one market,” said Husbands.
“By diversifying to include Africa and to be looking at places like Latin America, all of this helps us to build greater resilience for the Barbadian economy because you are spreading your risk across the many markets.”
Minister Husbands noted that Export Barbados (BIDC) was looking at diversifying the number of products Barbados had to offer for export in an effort to increase the island’s foreign exchange earning capacity.
“This is why this particular event is important. What this is doing is seeking to bring from across Africa, together with CARIFORUM [the Caribbean Forum] and CARICOM [Caribbean Community] countries, people who are interested in doing business together,” she said.
During the three-day conference, a number of investment opportunities in Barbados and the rest of the Caribbean, as well as opportunities in Africa, are expected to be presented to potential investors and business operators from both regions.
Husbands said instead of focusing on what the region can get from their relationships with North America and Europe, the focus must now be on how CARICOM states can pool resources and enter new markets in Africa.
She said while she looked forward to seeing a regular air link between Africa and Barbados, that would depend on a demand which could be created by sharing information about the Caribbean in Africa.
“The second thing that we need to do is to begin to create community engagement. That means we look at school exchanges, using technology to bring communities to talk with each other and engage with each other culturally because unless you do the engagement on the ground all the planning by policymakers and government officials will not translate into active business. It is people who have to know, trust each other, and be exposed to each other’s culture and goods,” she explained.
“That will be part of the programme going forward – to build the energy for people to want to fly and be able to transport goods, and this will then fuel the crowd that you need . . . to make it viable,” she said.
Chief Executive Officer of the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. (BTMI) Jens Thraenhart said he was thrilled to see the first direct flight from Africa, saying it signalled the start of a new tourism relationship between Barbados and Africa.
“I think this conference has fundamental importance with strengthening these ties,” he added.
Thraenhart was unable to say how soon the island could see regular flights from the African continent but said talks were ongoing.
“With us, it’s making sure that we can articulate our value proposition in our narrative that airlines will see the value to come to Barbados,” he said.
The BTMI CEO said that during the conference, tourism officials will be engaging delegates from Africa on tourism-related opportunities.
