BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) — The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) says it hopes Caribbean businesses will grasp the opportunities being presented at the trade fairs it will host in Grenada and Algeria this year.

“And what that means is that opens up opportunities for the Caribbean as well because small manufacturers or medium-sized manufacturers within the region will now have access to a large market, leveraging the AFCFTA (African Continental Free Trade Area) to create access to a new market, which is actually bigger and more sustainable,” said the acting chief operating officer at the Barbados-based Caribbean Office of Afreximbank, Okechukwu Ihejirika.

“Our traditional trading partners are coming up with measures that are aimed at restricting trade between us and them, but that means we now also need to create a long-lasting partnership among ourselves that’s going to be sustainable,” he said.

Afreximbank will hold the fourth AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF) in St George’s from July 28 to 29, with Algiers hosting the fourth Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF) from September 4.

Ihejirika said both events are excellent opportunities to deepen trade between Africa and the Caribbean, saying, “We’ve moved from referring to Africa as the geographic continent to Africa as we know it today.

“Now we know the concept of global Africa has been launched,” he said, noting that Afreximbank opened its Barbados office, the first outside of the continent, in 2023 and has been pushing the concept of global Africa.

IATF was first mooted in the 1970s as a platform to enable more trade between African countries but only gained traction in 2018 when Afreximbank reviewed it following the establishment of the bank’s intra-African trade initiative to support and grow trade possibilities in Africa.

At the time, five to seven per cent of the trade in Africa was among countries on the continent, and Afreximbank set out to increase it to about 20-25 per cent in the first instance.

Ihejirika said the main reason for the low levels of trade was a lack of information, noting, for example, that business people in the neighbouring countries of Nigeria and Ghana knew more about Chinese products than each other, although their own products were more affordable.

He said this meant that a platform was needed to address this dearth of information, hence the IATF, which is held biannually.

“We’ve had consistently over 40,000 people visiting the fair, which shows an enormous turnout, and we’ve had exhibitors ranging from over 1,500 exhibitors from different countries in Africa,” Ihejirika said.

This year, the bank is expecting similar numbers, with over 2,000 exhibitors from over 100 countries.

Ihejirika said that IATF creates opportunities for African businesses to interact with the global community, as it provides opportunities for business-to-business and business-to-government engagement.

There are also opportunities for people to showcase what they have as unique to their country, as well as for cultural exchanges.

He said with the African Union’s formal recognition of the diaspora as the sixth region of the continent, Afreximbank needed to work hand in hand to foster the ties and the bonds between Africa and the Caribbean.

Efforts are being made to put together an Africa-Caribbean business forum, which will also foster this particular idea behind creating a vibrant Africa-Caribbean relationship.

“But also important to note is that the bank is leading from the front with regards to making sure that this initiative sees the light of day,” he said, adding that in setting up the Caribbean office, Afreximbank was showing that it believes strongly in the Global African concept.

“And we want to see more trade happen between Africa and the Caribbean,” he said, adding that the International Trade Centre (ITC) says that trade between Africa and the Caribbean now stands at less than US$700 million.

“That’s abysmally low and needs to be worked on now,” Ihejirika said, adding that ITC projects that trade could be increased to US$1.8 billion by 2028.

“And it’s our intention, not just making US1.8 billion, but to grow it even more so that in today’s era where we see geopolitical issues crop up from now and then, we now need to create a bond between ourselves, which is a very sustainable one, which can help us create resilience, especially in times of trouble, in terms of issues,” Ihejirika said.

He said that having the Caribbean on board is critical for the success of the IATF.

“And we believe, with the launching of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area agreement in 2018, that created a 1.4 billion people’s market, 1.4 people market, which is the biggest globally. I mean, there’s no other free trade area that can compare to that.”

By participating in IATF, the Caribbean can see what is available in Africa and can forge lasting partnerships between the two regions.

Ihejirika emphasised that Afreximbank is ready to add financial strength and muscle to the efforts at deepening trade, adding that finance is important to making business-to-business initiatives successful.

ACTIF was first held in Barbados, then moved to Guyana and is taking place in St George’s this year. In Guyana, there were over 1,700 attendees, similar to in Barbados, with several deals being signed.

The third edition of ACTIF was twinned with Afreximbank’s annual meetings in The Bahamas in 2023 and saw almost 4,000 people attending.

Ihejirika said Afreximbank expects the Caribbean to use ACTIF “as an opportunity to showcase what they have on offer”, noting that the trade fair is taking place in the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) for the first time.

“So we are taking the exhibition just beyond Grenada alone to also create a forum where we talk about investment opportunities in the OECS generally, because these are all the things that come up.”

He added that the fair will be an opportunity to foster common solutions to common problems.