Exploring Trade and Other Relations Between Africa and the Caribbean

ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada - Caribbean and African politicians, trade representatives, bankers, academics and other stakeholders were heading back to their respective destinations on Wednesday after two-days here discussing deeper trade, economic and cultural ties.

Grenada’s Prime Minister Dickon Mitchel (center) in discussions with his counterparts from Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, and Dominica, Roosevelt Skerrit (CMC Photo)Visa, air and sea links were among the challenges identified as some of the major challenges impacting improved interactions between the two regions.

And, as the fourth Africa-Caribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF 2025) wrapped up here on Tuesday, host Prime Minister, Dickon Mitchell, said his country has started to pursue “a deliberate policy” of lifting visas for travel between Grenada and many of the African countries.

He noted that Nigerian investor, Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, had said during a panel discussion the previous day that African and Caribbean countries “foolishly” imposed visas on themselves.

These visa regimes have hindered trade, economic growth, development and the people-to-people movement that Africa and the Caribbean are now trying to improve.

“I will say so, unhesitatingly, certainly between Africa and the Caribbean, I do not see any valid reasons for maintaining the visa system,” Mitchell said during a joint press conference with the outgoing President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Africa Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), Benedict Oramah, and George Elombi, who would succeed him in that post in September.

Mitchell said that even if both regions try to maintain their visa regimes, technology is moving in the direction of biometrics, meaning that visas will give way to electronic travel authorization or visa on arrival — if one is still needed.

Mitchell noted that this was not novel among African and Caribbean countries, adding that this is already the case in Rwanda.

“I don’t know that it has had any negative consequences for them. I suspect, quite the contrary, it has certainly helped to improve their economic chances. So I think that’s one key thing that we need to send the message that we are not here to prevent our people from moving.”

Grenada is moving in a direction which Barbados went five years ago when it removed requirements for all but five African countries, with the visa requirement remaining for security reasons.

Speaking on a presidential panel one day earlier, Barbados Prime Minister,  Mia Mottley, said that lifting visa requirements should be discussed at the Caribbean Community-African Union (CARICOM-AU) summit in September.

“And it (visa-free travel) is, in fact, the prerequisite for us to be able to have a linkage between the CARICOM Single Market and Economy and the African Free Trade Area,” she said.

The panel discussion brought together Caribbean leaders as well as representatives of their African counterparts and explored the topic “New World Order as an Opportunity for Strengthening Africa-Caribbean Trade, Investment, and Cultural Relations”.

Mottley said the “further penetration” needed to deepen trade links between the 15-memmber CARICOM grouping and Africa will not happen “by sentiment nor speeches”.

Dangote, who joined the panel virtually, said abolishing visas is vital to boosting Africa-Caribbean trade.

“I think the first thing that we need to do is actually to try and create a corridor where there’s an airline business between the Caribbean and African countries, and also we need to remove all these visa issues, because one of the biggest issues that we have as entrepreneurs is about visa issues,” Dangote said.

“I think we need to team up together, remove all these visa issues; let us get to know each other. And you know, that will actually open up the doors for investment.”

Dominica’s Prime Minister, Roosevelt Skerrit, said investments in the Caribbean by business people like Dangote will facilitate direct flights between the two regions.

“… people are going to want to know what’s happening in the Caribbean, because this giant from the African continent is invested in the Caribbean,” Skerrit said, expressing the hope that after coming out of the CARICOM-AU summit, there will be  “a clear appreciation” of the need to create the facilitation.

“Visas really never existed before. We have caused ourselves, from a colonial standpoint, to impose restrictions on our movement,” Skerrit said.

“And in the 21st century, I think we need to get rid of all the visas and allow people to move freely. And there’s no reason why a businessman needs five visas to come to five different Caribbean countries. It’s not going to work.”

St. Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister, Dr. Terrance Drew said that visas are affecting trade between the region.

He said that two business people were supposed to attend ACTIF2025 today to sign with his government and agreement to investment in St. Kitts and Nevis through Afreximbank.

“And one of them could not be here because he needs a visa. That is already directly affecting how we do business,” Drew said.

“And, therefore, this tells us, in a stark way, that we really need to get rid of the business system. … Nigerians have visa-free access to St. Kitts and Nevis because we have been welcoming medical students for a long time, … But for us to go to Nigeria, we need a visa.”

Dangote, who is Nigerian, however, said this is about to change, adding that the country’s president has come up with a visa-on-arrival policy.

He said it has been very difficult to get a Nigerian visa, adding that the president could make an announcement soon.

“I think in this quarter, we will be hearing from the president how people can just get visas on arrival. I think that will open up.

Dangote operations in Nigeria are extensive and diversified, spanning key sectors such as cement manufacturing, sugar refining, oil and gas and maritime services, helped to turn the country from one of the largest importers in Africa to one of the largest exporter.

He said his dream is for Africa to supply the Caribbean with cement, petroleum products, and fertilizer.

“I visited there. I don’t have any visa issue, but other entrepreneurs they do have visa issues,” Dangote said.

“Once you remove the visa issues. We set up air connectivity, definitely. We have to work together, we are natural partners, who are the same people who are just being divided by the colonial masters, and we should get back and work together.”

Rwanda’s Minister of Trade and Industry, Rwanda, Prudence Sebahizi, who represented his country’s president, Paul Kagame on the panel, said the head of state has instructed him to say “that this unity we are talking about between Africa and the Caribbean is not a choice, it’s a necessity.

“And he also told me, whatever we see today as a challenge, in this global turbulence, Let’s take it as an opportunity, because Rwanda is one of the countries that have risen through resilience for so many challenges that we have gone through, starting from genocide and so on and so forth.”

Sebahizi said there are three elements where heads of state can facilitate the people of Africa and the Caribbean to interconnect and prosper, including removing visa restrictions.

“And Rwanda is one of the examples. My president took a bold decision, said, ‘We are welcoming the world. Everyone can come to Rwanda without a visa, and you have seen progress over the last 10 years.”

He said that Africa and the Caribbean also have to allow money and goods to move.

“When we talk about goods to move, we are talking about tariffs. When we talk about money to move. We are talking about investment. How do we facilitate investors?” Sebahizi said.

He said Rwanda has taken the bold decision “to welcome each and every investor to come to Rwanda”.

The trade and industry minister said Africa and the Caribbean also have to look at what each region is producing that they can export to the world.

“… because we welcome everyone. We welcome everything from the world. But what are we producing to take to the rest of the world? So I think we address those three things. We allow our people to connect, we welcome investment, we allow money and goods to move. Then we will make everything happen.”

Meanwhile, Mottley said the CARICOM-AU meeting in Ethiopia in September is “a critical follow-up, not just to establish the credentials of political will, but to begin to lay out a pathway that will allow the substantive interaction in trade, investment, diplomacy, etc, to continue people-to-people interaction”.

The Barbadian leader noted that one hand cannot clap, adding, “I may stand prepared, for example, to be able to support the opening up of travel on this side, but there has to be others on the other side, developing the market as well for it to happen.

“We may want to be able to see more direct trade linkages in terms of controlling the maritime routes, but it also requires a deconstruction, as to what is necessary for us to move goods, straight from West Africa to the Caribbean.”

She said the missing element might be information that would allow individual investors and traders to be able to make decisions.

“And I hope that one of the things that will come out of Addis Ababa in just over a month is the creation of that platform,” she said.

She said that having banks with which investors are familiar is the first step to making them comfortable.

“And to that extent, the presence of Republic Bank in Ghana, with over 50 branches, is a major starting point for us out of West Africa,” she said of the financial institution that is headquartered in Trinidad and Tobago.

She expressed hope that other banks from Africa would begin operating in the Caribbean

“And I say so conscious in my own country, we have three Canadian banks, the youngest of which, I think, is over 80 years old now,” Mottley said, adding that there are also two Trinidadian banks operating in Barbados.

“And we believe that it is more than possible for us to see the kind of innovation that we saw in East Africa, when Barclays and Standard Chartered and those pulled out of Kenya, there was an innovation that unleashed tremendous opportunities for the people of Kenya.”

Mottley said that is the kind of innovation needed in the Caribbean, adding that the region must also confront the fact that except Haiti, all CARICOM countries are underpopulated.

She noted that economic growth cannot be sustained without people, adding that the Caribbean needs to find a way of working alongside Africa.

“… because to the extent that there are skills that we cannot acquire here in sufficient scale or numbers that we need Africa, that is facing a demographic dividend in this century, can perhaps assist us in meeting some of those skills that are not presently available to us.”

Mottley said that the bottom line is that leaders “drill down into the details of what will make it possible to link our own single market and economy in the Caribbean with the African Free Trade Area.

“And then, equally, how we provide the information platform that will allow individual investments to move as well, in particular in the financial services sector, in banking and insurance.”

Meanwhile, Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne said there were a lot of opportunities to exploit through trade between Africa and the Caribbean.

“And when you look at the geopolitical challenges today, we obviously now have to become architects of our own development.”

He said that instead of operating extractive economies in the regions’ natural resources, are being extracted for the benefit of the global north, “I believe that we have to invest more in our own development.

“We have to increase processing of products to make sure that we can benefit from the value added. And as we continue to build the value added, we can clearly increase trade between Africa and the Caribbean.”

Browne said there are opportunities in terms of physical trade and even in terms of tourism trade.

“I’m sure that there are many Caribbeans who would like to travel to Africa. But again, it is cost-prohibitive. It is extremely long to get there. You have to transit various capitals to get to countries in Africa.”

He said that direct links between Africa and the Caribbean could move people, adding the presence of so many people at ACTIF 2025 shows that there is “definitely strong political will”.

“What is required now is action, and this is exactly what I’m urging that we move quickly to strengthen the institutional arrangements and to make the necessary investments so that we can increase trade and the movement of people who trade within the region, and extra regionally, between Africa and the Caribbean, and the movement of people between the two regions.”

However, St. Lucia’s Prime Minister, Phillip J. Pierre, said the people in the room were gathered for two purposes.

“If you’re in business, you want to create wealth, and you want to make a profit. And if you are a politician, you want to improve the quality of life of people.”

He, however, said that business and political leaders cannot assume that people know their vision after years in which Caribbean people did not know about Africa and its potential.

“We have to ensure that our children think of going to study in Africa, …We had to think that the people in our region want to buy goods from Africa,” the St. Lucia prime minister said.

“So what I’m advocating for is, in tandem with the economic, trade, etc., we need to have a people, people-to-people involvement. We have to bring the people on board so that people can understand and support what’s happening in this role,” Pierre added.