Various earlier initiatives designed the long-weakened links between Africa and the Caribbean in forgettable ‘business collaboration,’ most notably the slave trade. They both have, incrementally, arrived at a point where both ‘the continent’ and the Caribbean would appear to have decided on the re-kindling of business ties, albeit, utilizing more pleasing mechanisms.
In recent years, there has been a marked acceleration of tryout visits to Africa by Caribbean business delegations, the most prominent recent one being a visit to West Africa in June last year by a trade delegation from the region facilitated by the Barbados-based Caribbean Export Deve-lopment Agency (Carib Export). While no one would have expected that the visit would have loosened the cobwebs that had, over the years, been fashioned between the two regions, specifically in terms of trade and commerce, it served to re-open a door that had been shut tight over several decades.