Against the backdrop of the various recent initiatives intended to strengthen currently limited relations between the Caribbean and Africa, the Governments of Trinidad and Tobago and Ghana have signed an agreement for the Reciprocal Promotion and Protection of Investments (ARPPI), a development that can be regarded as an ‘opening salvo’ in what, going forward, is envisaged as a broader swathe of bilateral and multilateral relations between Africa and the Caribbean.
The matter of cementing firmer business ties between Africa and the Caribbean has been a ‘talking point’ for several years, though not a great had, hitherto been done to transform rhetoric into a more binding commitment on the two sides. Of late, however, business relations between the Caribbean and Africa have assumed an enhanced level of prominence. For the most part this shift in posture has been the result of the relative global attention which the Caribbean has attracted primarily on account of Guyana’s unveiled oil wealth.
Other events that served to underline enhanced relations between Africa and the Caribbean, including Guyana, were the June 2023 pioneering visit to Ghana by a regional delegation led by the Caribbean Export Development Agency (CARIBEXPORT), visits to Guyana by high-level African delegations to attend international oil and gas expos and the historic establishment in Barbados of a Caribbean ‘outpost’ of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) in August last year.
An article published in the Thursday September 26th issue of the Trinidad Guardian reported that the recent Agreement between Trinidad and Tobago and Ghana was signed on behalf of Trinidad and Tobago by the country’s Minister of Foreign and CARICOM Affairs, Dr. Amery Browne, and by Ghana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey. The Guardian reported that that too was a landmark moment in Caribbean/Africa relations and the fact the signing ceremony was held in New York on the margins of the high-level week of the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly would have afforded it a generous measure of international prominence.
Also, not least among the initiatives that have brought us to this juncture were the June 2023 visit to West Africa by a delegation of business functionaries from the region spearheaded by the regional trade promotion entity CARIBBEAN EXPORT, on the one hand, and various probing visits to the region by numerous African delegations, on the other. It was the August 2023 launch of the Caribbean branch of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) in Barbados, however, that is regarded, up to this time, as, perhaps, the most prominent indicator of Africa’s commitment to providing support for the implementation of the hoped-for closer economic and business ties between itself and the Caribbean.
Trinidad and Tobago, by its advancement of a reciprocal ARPPI, has signaled its preparedness to play a lead role in cementing business/commercial relations between Africa and the Caribbean. It is a signal that should be both applauded and endorsed in the rest of the region.
