Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member countries would appear to be positioning themselves to undertake what many will regard as a belated but, nonetheless, positive step forward in pursuit of the region’s long talked-about closer regimen of business ties with Africa, arising out of the recent launch of the Caribbean branch of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) in Barbados. The new facility which is intended to provide support for the implementation of hoped-for closer economic and business ties between the Caribbean and Africa and which will be based in Barbados, is intended to provide practical support for the implementation of a recently concluded partnership agreement between the Bank and CARICOM member countries to help facilitate an enhanced level of trade and investment relations.
Headquartered in Accra, Ghana, Afreximbank discloses in its Mission Statement that it seeks to “stimulate a consistent expansion, diversification and development of African trade, while operating as a first class, profit-oriented, socially responsible financial institution and a center of excellence in African trade matters.” Those objectives would appear to ‘fit in’ with the development trajectory of the Caribbean at this time. Afreximbank comes to the region at a time when the Caribbean appears keen to send signals to the wider international community of its readiness to consolidate its development profile. Recent significant exchange visits between areas of Africa and countries in the Caribbean at the levels of both political personages and business delegations have served to send ‘messages’ regarding what now appears to be an enhanced level of preparedness on both sides to press ahead with the meaningful consolidation of economic and commercial ties.
The establishment of a branch of Afreximbank in Barbados will be seen here in the region as, arguably, one of the first practical steps in pursuit of closer ties between the Caribbean and Africa, a wish which, here in the Caribbean, had, over time, been repeatedly expressed as part of various intra-regional discourses on the historic ties between the Caribbean and Africa and the potential for pushing the boundaries of those ties even further. What the launch of Afreximbank in Barbados does is to give expression to intentions reflected, not just in public pronouncements, in both the Caribbean and in Africa, but in an acceleration of public discourse here in the Caribbean on the desirability of closer business ties with Africa. This wish had again been articulated, recently, through the June “pioneering” Trade Mission to West Africa by Caribbean Export.
Several countries and institutions, both here in the Caribbean and in Africa, can take varying levels of credit for the arrival at a point where there now exists a high-profile financial institution that can give real ‘shape’ to embarking on a ‘voyage’ that had had its origins in historical musings about affording meaningful continuity to Caribbean/Africa ties. What is embedded in the Partnership Agreement signed by Afreximbank and CARICOM member countries is a commitment to the expansion of African-Caribbean Trade and Investment Relations.
This, it need hardly be said, requires considerable and sustained commitment at the level of both governments and the private sector, here in the Caribbean and in Africa. There are, at this juncture, pointed indications that Afreximbank is ‘ready to rumble.’
The Bank’s recent move to ‘put down roots’ in Barbados had been preceded by an earlier commitment to providing a US$1.5 billion ‘credit limit’ to CARICOM member countries. Since then, it has committed to increasing that credit limit to $3 billion. Its particular focus, we are told, is about boosting the development of what is being described as “trade-enabling infrastructure, enhancing trade and investments between both regions” and providing support to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). What Afreximbank’s President, Professor Benedict Omrah has promised, is that the bricks and mortar commitment that has already been made (through the establishment of the Bank’s new offices in Barbados) will bring the Bank’s “products and initiatives” much closer to the region‘s business community, allowing for “stronger relations with governments” in pursuit of “the realization of mutually identified priorities.” At this particularly challenging stage of its development, this is not an option that the Caribbean can afford to overlook.
