Low goods trade but African digital opportunities loom – Export Barbados

Digital services, artificial intelligence and pharmaceuticals could help Barbados expand trade with Africa, but the head of the state export promotion agency has said financing, shipping and production constraints must be addressed to increase goods exports.

With less than one per cent of Barbados’ exports currently going to Africa, Export Barbados Chief Executive Officer Mark Hill said Barbados must rethink how it produces and delivers goods to establish and sustain trade with the 54-nation continental market.

He told Barbados TODAY, “We imported just around $4 million in goods from Africa last year, and less than one per cent of our exports goes towards Africa. So there is a lot of work to be done on the goods side, but goods are the only form of exports. You have digital products and digital services, business products and business services that are growing, and we are saying that portfolio is increasing significantly.”

The relationship should no longer be viewed solely in terms of exporting traditional products such as rum, Hill said. He suggested that the growth of AI, fintech, and digital platforms is creating opportunities without the barriers of shipping physical goods between Barbados and Africa.

He added: “Artificial intelligence is changing the game between how Barbados and Africa do business, and we’re seeing greater exchange and greater collaboration around that with small, medium, and large businesses going forward.”

Hill believes pharmaceuticals and health technology could see particularly strong growth, as Barbados is already developing a deeper pharmaceutical relationship with Rwanda while exploring opportunities in health technology and wellness.

He also pointed to Barbados’ lens technology capabilities as another area where demand from African markets could increase.

According to the CEO, professional and business services are also becoming an important part of the relationship, alongside opportunities in the creative, renewable energy, climate technology and resilience infrastructure industries.

This trading relationship was not one-way, Hill added, explaining that Export Barbados had been sourcing products from Africa to support small businesses, including shea butter and oils such as baobab and bay leaf for beauty and personal care providers.

He also identified opportunities in expanding financial links between Barbados and Africa, describing the African Export-Import Bank’s decision to establish a base here as a “massive breakthrough”.

Afreximbank has already financed projects, including the hotel development on Bay Street and work on Kensington Oval.

Those developments demonstrate that the relationship with Africa is moving beyond traditional trade and into investment and project financing, he said.

Nevertheless, the Export Barbados CEO acknowledged that several obstacles, particularly logistics, must be addressed before Barbados can fully take advantage of the African market for physical goods.

“We need the transatlantic logistics and the supply chain to become a little bit more intelligent around how we get goods and services,” he said, adding that this was particularly important given freight costs, indirect shipping routes and uncertainty about delivery times.

There is also a need for better market intelligence to identify reliable buyers and local partners, as well as stronger trade arrangements covering areas such as duties and product registration, he said.

The biggest challenge was financing and working capital, he noted, adding that Barbados must consider how its reindustrialisation plans can complement Afreximbank’s own reindustrialisation agenda.

“We know that Afreximbank has a reindustrialisation agenda. Barbados government has a very strong reindustrialisation agenda as well. So we are going to sit at the table and look at how both industrialisation strategies can complement each other as you go forward into 2026, 2027.”

For Hill, the scale of the African market requires Barbados to rethink how it produces and delivers goods: “Africa is one of the biggest markets on planet Earth, so our ability to scale and to scale with consistency. An order for Africa is not going to be small. Africa has the youngest demographic on planet Earth, and you’re talking about minimum orders [that] could be a 40-foot container.

“So on our end, we have to demonstrate the capacity to scale, or whether it means that we’re going to have to redesign our delivery machinery to be owners of the entire supply and value chain and not necessarily be the ones who make everything from Barbados. So we have to re-engineer how we approach manufacturing and how we approach delivery to deliver the scale and the consistency that we need to do so in such a large market.”

Until these issues are resolved, Hill expects digital services to remain one of the strongest growth areas because they are less affected by the physical challenges of moving goods between the two regions.

He identified payment and payment risk as other concerns, particularly for creative businesses.

Citing music as an example, he noted the popularity of Afrobeats and the potential for Barbadian music to find audiences in African markets. The challenge, he said, is figuring out how artists and businesses can reliably monetise those exports while managing currency conversion, verifying buyers and establishing collection arrangements. 

(JB)