Afreximbank, others plan to establish Caribbean Exim Bank

African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has announced that it would work with governments of the Caribbean community (CARICOM) to set up a Caribbean Exim Bank with a commitment to invest about $700 million in the Caribbean.

Presidents, Afreximbank, Prof. Benedict Oramah, said there had been tremendous progress in accelerating the membership of CARICOM nations in Afreximbank and that signature of a participant agreement would enable Afreximbank to operate in the Caricom region and deliver  on the new vision.

Oramah spoke at the maiden AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF2022) in Bridgetown, Barbados.

“Once these arrangements are concluded and visible, we will also open an office here in the Caribbean. And if we do agree, the Bank will work with governments of the CARICOM to set up a Caribbean Exim Bank as an Afreximbank subsidiary or affiliate,” he said, adding that Afreximbank “envisages committing an investment of $700 million in the Caribbean as soon as a regional office is opened”.

“We stand at the cusp of history to open a well of opportunities for Africa and the Caribbean and to leverage our individual and collective strengths towards the attainment of our shared prosperity,” Oramah said. “The vision is clear. However, we must, therefore, be focused while recognising that there are so many hurdles to cross,” he added.

He reminded the audience of the atrocities of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, which saw many Africans enslaved and forcibly transported to the Americas and the Caribbean and highlighted the close links and shared history and identity of the African and Caribbean people.

“We will want to leave here with actionable proposals on how to open air and sea links between the Caribbean and Africa. We would like to leave here with concrete plans to open banking and payment rails, to see joint ventures for industrial projects, to deepen our commercial collaboration in the creative and commercial space, to collectively protect our intellectual properties to share knowledge and invest in climate adaption projects. We must be proud that this is a reunion arising out of a felt need, underpinned by a solid economic, cultural, historical rationale,” Oramah said.

The three-day ACTIF2022 featured a keynote address by host Prime Minister, Mia Amor Mottley of Barbados. President, Chandrikapersad Santokhi of Suriname. Chairman of CARICOM also spoke along with Amadou Hott, Minister of Economy, Planning and International Cooperation, Republic of Senegal; Albert Muchanga, African Union Commissioner for Economic Development, Trade, Industry and Mining;  Dr. Carla Natalie Barnett, Secretary-General, CARICOM Secretariat; and Mr John Williams, Chairman, Invest Barbados.

Mottley said Africa and the Caribbean have it within their capacity to remove the “scars of the middle passage” by cooperating on the great issues confronting the two regions.

She said that Africa and the Caribbean had the collective brainpower, creativity, discipline, resilience and capital to make a defining difference and called for the creation of air bridges between the regions.

Emphasising the importance of collaborating at various levels to facilitate development, she insisted that political cooperation, even though essential, was not sufficient to reverse the underdevelopment of Africa and the Caribbean.

“We, children of independence, have determined that we shall not allow another generation to pass without bringing together that which should have never been torn asunder. We face common battles from the climate crisis to the COVID pandemic, now to the third aspect of it, with respect to inflation and debt that threaten to tear too many of our countries apart and threaten to put back into poverty too many of our people.

“These travel dependent economies, whether in Africa or in the Caribbean, have literally been thrown on their backs and we seek to fight this battle of bridging and reclaiming our Atlantic destiny on both sides, at the very time when the travel and tourism industry is facing its greatest challenge in decades… We can choose to record that as but another major battle, or we can say as my country has done, even in the midst of an IMF programme, that if you do not seize our destiny now, we will never seize it.

“It is not anticipated that we can reverse centuries in a few years, but it is anticipated that there are some who must claim the courage to jump off the ship and make it happen,” Mottley said.