Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has left Ghana to attend the maiden edition of the AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum in Bridgetown, Barbados as the special guest of honour.
The investment forum begins tomorrow Thursday through to Saturday 3rd September 2022, at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre (LESC) in Barbados.
It is on the theme: “One People, One Destiny. Uniting and Reimagining Our Future”.
Forum goals
The main goal of the investment forum is to provide a platform for the development of strategic partnerships between the business communities in Africa and the CARICOM Region with the objective of fostering bilateral cooperation and engagement in trade, investment, technology transfer, innovation, tourism, culture and other services.
It will also be used as a vehicle to actively promote trade and investment opportunities among people of Africa and the Caribbean, as well as the wider diaspora which will contribute to the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) and to the Caribbean trade development agenda.
Event promoters
The Government of the Republic of Barbados is hosting the first ever AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF) which is being convened by African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) and Government of Barbados.
The Forum is also being held in collaboration with African Union Commission (AUC), African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat, Africa Business Council, the Caribbean Community Secretariat, and Caribbean Export Development Agency.
African-Caribbean ties
African and Caribbean ties are deep rooted and based on shared history, culture, and sense of a common identity and destiny that was forged by the slave trade creating large centres of African Diaspora in the Caribbean and elsewhere.
Whilst Africa and the Caribbean have renewed their engagement, with a Heads of State and Government Summit of the Caribbean Community and Africa, held on 7 September 2021, the relationship according to organizers of the Investment Forum, needs to be institutionalized through deepening of trade and investment ties between the two regions.
The holding of the inaugural Africa-Caribbean Trade and Investment Forum is therefore a key strategic deliverable towards the institutionalization of the reborn relationship between Africa and the Caribbean.
This Forum, according to its promoters, will further consolidate the political agreement reached by Heads of State and Government of the Caribbean Community and which aims to strengthen collaboration, unity and to foster increased trade, investment and people-to-people engagement between the two regions.
