Barbados Export doubles trade with companies on continent, aims for further growth

Export Barbados has seen a significant increase in trade with the African continent over the past year, according to chief executive officer Mark Hill.

The value of trade is approaching $200 000 but the state export agency is eyeing ten-fold growth, he said, noting rising levels of confidence and trust between business partners on both sides of the Atlantic.

Whilst declining to provide specific statistics, Hill said: “Our primary mode of operating at Export Barbados is concrete action. We’ve doubled our trade with Africa. I don’t want to give you the numbers at this point, but we’ve doubled our trade and then we’re focusing on doubling that again, this coming financial year.

“The numbers don’t matter because before we were doing like US$35 000 ($70 000) between us and Africa; they were doing US$3 000 ($6 000), just little things. But now we see it moving closer to the US$100 000 ($200 000) mark, and then we’re gonna keep pushing till we get to US$1 million ($2 million) and then see how it moves from there.”

He was speaking on the sidelines of the recently concluded AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum in the Bahamas.

Hill anticipates that future growth will be driven primarily by trade in services, particularly in intellectual property (IP).

“And by IP I don’t necessarily mean patents, I mean licensing,” he explained. “So, for example, we don’t have to set up and export everything from Barbados to Africa; we can license our product, manufacture it in Africa, and sell into the African market and repatriate the resources and funds back to Barbados.”

The Export Barbados CEO also projected an expansion in education services, citing the example of a local masseuse providing training in Rwanda.

“We anticipate our accountants and our legal people should be doing a lot more service activities within the continent as well,” he added.

Hill revealed that Export Barbados is also collaborating with Rwanda on pharmaceuticals and working with Kenya and Togo. “So we’re just spreading our wings across Africa bit by bit,” he said.

Barbados has been exporting items such as biscuit-maker Wibisco’s products, Armstrong Agencies’ Clayton’s Kola Tonic, and rum to Africa while importing items including prostate health medicine, shea butter, and essential oils from the continent. Hill also disclosed that eight of Ghana’s top scientists were in Barbados working on the country’s plant medicine programme.

Reflecting on last week’s trade and investment forum, Hill revealed that since its inauguration in Barbados in 2022, he has noted “more interest, more trust, more confidence as we interact with our African brothers and sisters”.

He expressed optimism about concrete business opportunities arising from this year’s forum.

“As we spend more time connecting, talking in these forums, persons are getting to know one another and therefore what it’s yielding now is ‘let’s move beyond just talk, let’s get some actual action happening’,” Hill remarked. “On the Barbados front, we have been doing more pragmatic activities . . . importing products from Ghana, from other parts of Africa … so we’re having discussions and expanding that now and looking to incorporate a few more into our trade pipeline.”

The trade and investment forum was organised to coincide with the annual meetings of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), held for the first time outside of the African continent. A year after inaugurating its CARICOM office here, the bank also announced its first deal with the Barbadian private sector, financing construction magnate Mark Maloney’s completion of the Hyatt hotel at Carlisle Bay and the expansion of his Rock Hard Cement business to the tune of $200 million.

dawneparris@barbadostoday.bb