JAMAICA | PJ Patterson touts importance of Africa-CARICOM Trade Initiative

MONTEGO BAY,  July 29, 2023 - Statesman in Residence at the PJ Patterson Institute for Africa-Caribbean Public Advocacy at the University of the West Indies, former Jamaican Prime Minister P. J. Patterson, wants Caribbean and African leaders to advance their collective interests, by investing, creating markets and engaging in commerce and development in our African-Caribbean space.

Addressing the tenth anniversary Conference of the Pan African Enterprise Research Council Conference, Mr. Patterson urged the organization to seek to foster Africa-Caribbean Collaboration, and to “find your special niche.”   

He said “Failure to monitor ourselves in that regard would allow others to keep us locked into systems of trade and economic relations in which we continue to receive the crumbs, while others continue to exploit our resources in our space and reap most of the profit from what there is to extract.”

“The time has come to restore our people to our rightful place among humankind: to reclaim the honour of Black lives lost in the Middle Passage and redemption for generations who  perished during the slave trade and colonial savagery.” Mr. Patterson said.

“Bob Marley warned us to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery. Refusing to link ourselves across the pond means that we are still chaining ourselves to the past pattern of trade which has kept us riveted to the North, and to the countries that enslaved us. We must engage them as equals and exercise choice in how we do so,” he noted.

The former Jamaican Prime Minister pointed to the Africa Caricom Summit of 2020 as an important starting point on which to build. 

“The Ministerial Conferences on Trade held in Barbados and on Tourism in Jamaica must be followed with meaningful collaboration to remove the impediments and encourage the investments which will increase our market share in goods, services and the hospitality sector,” he said. 

“Afrieximbank is due to open its Caribbean Headquarters in Barbados next week.  In the early conceptual stage, is the development of a business supply chain network of an African Caribbean enterprise which would be able to target Europe and the Americas.  We desperately need bold initiatives of this kind,” Patterson pointed out.

“We have to recognize that the digital revolution shapes more than our intercourse in communication.  It shapes every facet of our lives.  Global Africa cannot be left behind.

“We have to spawn digital technology that opens new, exciting channels through which we can relate, transact business and command our own space in this era of globalization.

“In the Diaspora, there is an array of innovative talent which can provide the human capital to accelerate our progress.

“If Africa, the cradle of human civilization, is to fulfil its destiny as the continent with the greatest potential for the future, each of its six regions must be impelled to promote that digital transformation which will secure our rightful place as a global economic superpower,” Patterson concluded.

Only recently, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, in mooting similar sentiments as Mr. Patterson explained that the Afreximbank, which will open its regional headquarters on August  4, was established in the year 1994 is much more than just a bank.  

She said the Afreximbank Group includes an Insurance Management Agency,  an intra-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), a Dubai-based Credit Fund,  a quality infrastructure company that provides testing, inspection and certification services across Africa, a specialist hospital development entity,  and an industrial infrastructure development company.

“ We are determined to reverse the negative and evil historical Middle Passage, and reimagine and reconstruct  it in a positive way to serve our own interests and purposes,” PM Mottley pointed out.

“We in the Caribbean Community are determined to reclaim our Atlantic destiny, to reconnect with our African “heartland”, and to realize the dreams and aspirations of the Hon. Marcus Mosiah Garvey and so many other of our outstanding Pan-Africanists, on both sides of the Atlantic ocean, and Afreximbank is simply playing a role in helping us to accomplish this,” she concluded”.

The Afreximbank Partnership Agreement was launched on 1 September 2022, at the first Africa-Caribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF) held in Bridgetown, Barbados, at which time nine CARICOM member countries acceded to the agreement.

The Board of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has made available US$1.5 billion, to enable CARICOM member states that have ratified the Partnership Agreement with Afreximbank, to tap into the Bank’s various financial instruments.

This amount is expected to jump to US3-billion, if and when the other member states sign on. Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago are yet to accede to the agreement.

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