Africa-Caribbean Trade and Investment: From Vision to Reality By Mrs. Kanayo Awani, Executive Vice President, Intra-African Trade and Export Development, Afreximbank  

Being the Opening Statement to introduce the Panel Discussion on “Africa-Caribbean Trade and Investment: From Vision to Reality” at the AfricaCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF2025), held in St. George’s, Grenada from Monday, July 28 to Wednesday, July 30, 2025. 

• The Honourable Dickon Amiss Thomas Mitchell, Prime Minister of Grenada and all Heads of State present.
• E. Dr. Carla Natalie Barnett, Secretary General of CARICOM Secretariat
• E. Amb. Selma Malika Haddadi, Deputy Chairperson, African Union (AU)
• Benedict Oramah, President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Afreximbank
• E. Wamkele Mene, Secretary-General, African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat
• Joseph Andall, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Export Development, Grenada and other Ministers Present
• George Elombi, Executive Vice President – Corporate Governance and Legal Services, Afreximbank and other senior executives from Afreximbank
• Captains of Industry
• Past President and Afreximbank Board Members
• Distinguished ladies and gentlemen

Good afternoon

It is with great honour that I stand before you at this fourth edition of the AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF) in the beautiful city of St. Georges. Today we continue to give life to the vision of a Global Africa- a connected, economically empowered, and prosperous community bound by a shared ancestry, economic ambition, and cultural pride.

Allow me a moment of reflection— as this journey did not begin in a vacuum. I vividly recall one of several conversations we had with President Oramah at a time when the Caribbean barely featured in Africa’s strategic economic engagements. We discussed how it was time we extended our Pan-African mission and implement our Diaspora Strategy so that we could connect Africans, regardless of geography in line with our Intra-AfricaN Trade strategy, (which is the arrowhead of our enterprise strategy)  with the emphasis on ‘N’ (Intra-AfricaN). At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when fear and uncertainty gripped our nations, Afreximbank stepped up to deliver not just financing—but hope. Through a $2 billion facility, we supported the procurement of over 400 million doses of vaccines for African Union member states and Caribbean nations. This wasn’t merely about public health. It was about restoring our dignity.

Through deliberate action, spurred on by the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Caribbean emerged as the most natural region for advancing our diaspora strategy given that they were organised as a bloc and presented the opportunity to give effect to the African Unions decision to recognize the diaspora as the Sixth Region of Africa.

 This taught us that political will combined with deliberate action has the potential to unlock even deeper economic, social and cultural relations.  

At that moment, something shifted for us. It wasn’t just a strategic directive—it was a calling to correct a historical wrong that had artificially separated us for far too long. For decades, Africa and the Caribbean had shared pain, shared struggles and shared historical injustice—but we did not have a shared economic destiny. That had to change and that is why the Bank has been unrelenting in its efforts to promote integration between Africa and the Caribbean.

And it also why we selected “Africa-Caribbean Trade and Investment: From Vision to Reality” as a theme for this panel. A theme to demonstrate how we have been working to translate this aspiration of a shared economic destiny into a reality.

Distinguished Guests,

To demonstrate the journey, we have travelled in just a few short years, allow me to recall some of the ambitions set out by Prof. Oramah’s at the inaugural ACTIF that held in Bridgetown, Barbados in 2022. This included, among others, ensuring that Afreximbank is empowered to deliver value to Caribbean states through a partnership agreement; opening an office in the Caribbean, working with countries to establish a Caribbean Export Import Bank; and committing an investment of $700m in the Caribbean to support Africa-Caribbean trade and investment.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, in the four short years since that historic first gathering in Bridgetown, under the rallying cry “One People. One Destiny, and which witnessed 7 CARICOM countries sign the Partnership Agreement with the Bank, we have delivered much more than this original commitment.  

• Today thirteen of the fifteen CARICOM member states have acceded to the Afreximbank Partnership Agreement.
• We have expanded our financing beyond the original ambition of US$700 million to a transformative US$3 billion, enhancing our ability to build, trade, and transform our destinies.
• We established our Caribbean Regional Office in Bridgetown in 2023— Afreximbank’s first permanent presence outside the African continent. And earlier this year we broke ground on our US$180 million state-of-the-art Afreximbank African Trade Centre (AATC) in the Caribbean, marking a pivotal moment for trade relations between Africa and the CARICOM region.
• In the two years since opening our office we have approved over US$700 million in critical support including:
• US$6 million to the Government of Saint Lucia for Climate adaptation.
• US$25 million to Kensington Oval Management Inc. for sports infrastructure tied to the 2024 ICC T20 World Cup under our CANEX intervention.
• US$30 million to the Bahamas Development Bank to finance SMEs.
• US$30 million to the JDC Ora group in Grenada for the expansion of the Silversands Hotel brand in Grenada.
• Joint Mandated Lead Arranger to raise USD1.6 billion for the State Oil Company in Suriname, with a participation of USD500 million confirmed;

And the pipeline continues to deepen.

• In the Bahamas, we’ve signed a US$200 million infrastructure facility,
• In Grenada, we are co-financing a world-class tertiary hospital valued at USD240 million, which is expected to be modelled after our Africa Medical Centre of Excellence (AMCE) project in Abuja, Nigeria.
• In Guyana and Suriname, a combined US$6 billion in local content facilities have been launched to catalyse indigenous participation in the oil and gas sector.
• In the Bahamas a $1.86 million Project Preparation Facility has been approved to develop an Afro-Caribbean Marketplace and Logistics Center on Grand Bahama Island.

In addition, we are working to ensure that we create the institutions and skills that will ensure our economic emancipation.

• The Bank is collaborating with CARICOM to conduct a feasibility study for the establishment of a CARICOM EXIM Bank that can serve the needs of member states and leverage trade to deliver development;
• We have launched the Caribbean Payment and Settlement System (CAPSS)—modeled after PAPSS—to decolonise our payment systems and empower regional trade in local currencies. Caribbean Payment and Settlement System (CAPSS) and PAPSS, will make it possible to trade in local currencies, and is estimated to save over US$1 billion annually in foreign exchange conversion costs and settlement delays.
• To support the technological advancement of our people, Afreximbank is supporting the P.J. Patterson Institute for Africa-Caribbean Advocacy at the University of the West Indies to establish an Africa-Caribbean hub dedicated to the pioneering development of generative Artificial Intelligence. For too long, Africa and the Caribbean have been sidelined in the global narrative of technological advancement, particularly in the realm of cutting-edge AI.
• We have made available a grant of €708,000 to the CARICOM Development Fund to launch a Resilience and Sustainability Fund to support the region.
• We supported disaster recovery with over US$500,000 in post-Hurricane Beryl humanitarian relief.
• We also initiated the creation of the Africa-Caribbean Business Council and have been supporting it through grant money under the auspices of the African Business Council (AfBC) and Caribbean Private Sector Organisation (CPSO).

We are also unlocking the talents of our youth, leveraging the power of our cultural economy. Through CANEX (Creative Africa Nexus), Afreximbank has made strategic investments in fashion, film, music, culinary arts, and storytelling—placing Caribbean talent on global stages.

• We are partnering with Studio 327 on a US$24 million Creative Training and Film Production programme across Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
• We’ve proudly enabled Caribbean designers such as The Cloth and Meiling (Trinidad and Tobago), Margaux Wong (Guyana), and Keneea Linton and Yolvinta (Jamaica), PETA Odini from St. Vincent and the Grenadines- who are here I believe- to showcase at international fashion weeks in Paris, Portugal, and Tokyo enabling them to obtain contracts and expose their brands to international markets.
• Through the CANEX Book Factory, we spotlighted Caribbean literary talent, with writers from Vincent and the Grenadines and St. Kitts and Nevis attending our inaugural Creative Writing Workshop in Ghana.
• And at CANEX Weekend, Afro-Caribbean cuisine has taken center stage, with celebrated chefs like Natasha De Bourg and Davisha Burrowes flying the regional flag at top culinary showcases. Following her participation at the Intra-African Trade Fair Chef Natasha De Bourg began a collaboration with Chef Stone from Nigeria bridging the Gastronomy gap between Africa and the Caribbean.
• Last year, we sponsored a historic musical collaboration called One Drum bringing together Olodum of Brazil, Stephen Marley, Flavour, Maphoriza and other legends, reinforcing our cultural ties.

All this has been made possible through the suite of financing, facilitation products and initiatives as well as advisory services which the Bank has relentlessly pursued and deployed in the region. Our Chief Operating Officer and distinguished panelists will delve into these and other successes in more detail during the panel discussion.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen

What we are building is not episodic-it is systemic.

Let us pause for a moment and imagine what success will truly look like when Africa and the Caribbean fully realise their economic and cultural symbiosis.

• We envision an integrated corridor of air and maritime connectivity, where weekly direct flights from Lagos to Bridgetown, Accra to Kingston, and Nairobi to Port of Spain are as routine as regional shuttles. In this new reality, container ships sail between Abidjan and Georgetown, transporting not only goods but opportunity.

• Picture a thriving creative economy where Burna Boy headlines a sold-out concert at Queen’s Park Savannah in Trinidad, while Koffee electrifies an audience at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival. Our designers will strut down shared runways in a “Global Africa Fashion Week”—broadcast live from Kigali to Kingston. Our musicians will record collaborative albums, our filmmakers will co-produce content, and our artists will sell to global collectors, backed by harmonised IP protections and regional creative hubs.

• Imagine financial services across banking, FINTECH, insurance, factoring services etc. owned by African and Caribbean businesses and Joint Venture arrangements supported by Afreximbank and other interested partners.

• Imagine, also, industrial parks in Grenada, Suriname, and Jamaica, or in Nigeria, Egypt and Senegal built with African and Caribbean capital and technical expertise, producing fertiliser, pharmaceuticals, and light manufacturing goods for both inter-regional consumption and transhipment to the Americas, Europe and other markets. These special economic zones will serve as magnets for private investment and youth employment, generating tens of thousands of skilled jobs and creating new value chains that span the Atlantic. Imagine Industrial parks and logistics hubs.

• Of note, in his speech, H.E Wamkele Mene, Secretary General of AfCFTA Secretariat mentioned opportunities in Agri-Processing and Energy. E. Prof. Osibanjo (Nigeria’s former Vice President) also spoke of cooperation in renewable energy projects given our shared vulnerabilities in terms of climate issues.

• Tourism too will be reimagined—not as leisure alone, but as commerce. Not just in leisure but in healthcare. Think of cultural festivals co-hosted across both regions—Carnival circuits linking the Grenada Spicemas carnival to Lagos, and Maroon celebrations connecting Jamaica to Ghana. Think of the best athletes in the world competing in the Global Africa championship. Our cultural diplomacy will become soft power in motion—shaping perceptions, building trust, and fueling business.

• Imagine Local content policy frameworks backed by financing support that ensures local participation in minerals critical to the Caribbean.

This is not utopia. It is a future within reach.

A future where trade is not an extractive act but a shared enterprise delivering better tomorrow. A future where value is not lost in transit but multiplied through connection.

I therefore challenge the panel before me to identify actionable initiatives, strategies and recommendations that will sustain our shared vision for the foreseeable future.  Our path forward must be bolder. More intentional. More unified.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen

Before I close, allow me to extend a heartfelt invitation.

From 4–10 September 2025, the world will gather in Algiers, Algeria, for the 4^th edition of the Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF). With over 2,000 exhibitors, 35,000 visitors, and more than US$44 billion in expected trade and investment deals, IATF is not just a fair—it is an economic revolution. And IATF will feature a dedicated Global Africa Diaspora Day—your day. A celebration of what connects us, and a launchpad for what empowers us.

I look forward to seeing you all in Algiers.

Thank you and may God bless you all.