Building Bridges Across the Atlantic – African Business

For two regions with such a deeply connected history, economic links between Africa and the Caribbean are relatively limited. However, the creation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AFCFTA) has reinvigorated African initiatives to promote trade between AfCFTA member states along with the rest of the world.

The two regions have a shared history based on trans-Atlantic slave trade, As a result the majority of the African diaspora living in the Caribbean were. In fact, until recently most attention focused on historical links, particularly through events to commemorate the disastrous slave trade.

Greater South–South cooperation and trade have been discussed since the 1970s, including with the Organization of African, Caribbean and Pacific States, but the volume of actual trade has been very low. The most recent figures on intra-regional trade come from 2017, when Africa exported only $258m to Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries, importing $449m in return.

In 1998–99, efforts were made to build links between CARICOM and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), but little progress was made. Direct diplomatic representation is limited, with only Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago having resident diplomatic missions in South Africa, while only Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago are represented in Nigeria.

This is largely due to the lack of travel between the two regions, but also mostly to the financial constraints of the much smaller Caribbean countries. In turn, Morocco has an embassy in St Lucia covering the entire region since 2015, while Nigeria and South Africa have missions in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.

Trade relations have been limited, partly because of the limited size of the Caribbean’s population and GDP, but also because African and Caribbean economies have traditionally competed for a single place in the global economy: agricultural products and other raw materials. exports of the industrialized world.

However, notable recent economic relations include the decision of the Central Bank of Nigeria to be awarded the contract to develop New Digital Currency, eNaira, fintech company Bit Inc., based in Barbados. In addition, Nigerian investors are expected to buy a 75% stake in the ailing Caribbean regional airline LIAT. Republic Bank of Trinidad and Tobago has a subsidiary in Ghana, while the Jamaican conglomerate Grace Kennedy Group was active in the same country from 2012 to 2018.

There is little direct air and sea connectivity between the two regions, although direct air services between the Caribbean and Ghana and Kenya have been proposed. There is scope for more tourism, encouraging people from the Caribbean to connect with the regions from which their ancestors came, perhaps even to research their genealogy.

Very few bilateral tax and investment agreements currently exist, although Barbados and Rwanda are to sign an investment agreement this year. The Caribbean has not been regarded as an economic priority by African countries in the past. However, Afreximbank has announced that it aims to provide trade finance through the new Afro-Caribbean Trade and Investment Financing Facility with an initial capital of $250m.

getting closer

Several African leaders and multilateral organizations have sought to promote economic ties and more normal relations with the Caribbean over the past three years. In June 2019, Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo visited five English-speaking Caribbean countries: Barbados, Guyana, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, signing bilateral cooperation agreements in the process. The Government of Ghana called for a stronger relationship between the African diaspora and the African continent during the year of its return to 2019.

An African and Caribbean Heads of State and Government Summit was held in Nairobi in September 2021. At the summit, the then Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta called upon the two regions to work together to tackle the challenges posed by COVID-19, rising debt levels, climate. Change and the blue economy. CARICOM and the African Union used the incident to highlight the work they have done to promote more equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, with Barbados Prime Minister Mia Motley remarking: “Something like an idea Not even whose time has come”.

At the event, the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda – and President of CARICOM – Gaston Brown said: “We must establish a framework of cooperation to promote our mutual socio-economic interests; in investment and trade between Africa and the Caribbean. growth, and people-to-people exchanges. We must resist marginalization of international decision-making and cooperate on decisions on restructuring the global financial framework, global taxation, derisking, climate change and reassessment among others .

Barbados is to host the inauguration on 1-3 September. African Caribbean Business and Investment Forum (ACTIF), which is being organized by Afreximbank, African Union Commission, AfCFTA Secretariat, Africa Business Council, CARICOM Secretariat and Caribbean Export Development Agency, as well as the Government of Barbados.

The forum, which is to be held on an annual basis to analyze the global situation for the two regions and their “place within it”, seeks to promote cooperation and unity and cultural engagement but the main focus is on promoting trade. While specific business deals are possible, such events are primarily important to highlight the potential of new business relationships and encourage business leaders to broaden their perspectives.

CARICOM is a collection of 15 countries and dependencies, of which only one is not anglophone – Haiti. However, it should be noted that the total population of CARICOM is just 44m as compared to 19m. The two most populous countries in the Caribbean – Cuba and the Dominican Republic – are not members, and are often considered separate from the rest of the Caribbean. English-speaking African countries share a common language with the 14 CARICOM member states, while francophone countries have linguistic ties with Haiti.

Source link

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous post Over 8,000 Somali police officers trained by AU peacekeeping mission in 13 years
Next post Putin’s New Martyr for the Russian Cause