Editorial | Partnering with Africa

Last week’s announcement by the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) of a two-thirds increase in its financing cap for the Caribbean – to US$5 billion over the next four years – was important.

But also of significance was the disclosure by the bank’s president, George Elombi, that major African firms with which Afreximbank has connections, or supports, were already scouting the Caribbean for business opportunities. One of these, Arise Integrated Industrial Platforms (Arise IIP) is exploring special economic zones, an area that should be of interest to Jamaica, which hopes to establish itself as a major logistic hub.

Arise IIP – in which an Afreximbank subsidiary, Fund for Export Development in Africa (FEDA), is an investor – operates major economic zones, or industrial platforms, as it calls them, in Gabon, Togo and Benin. It is build-out of facilities in Chad and Rwanda.

If concrete ventures grow out of the expressions of interest in the Caribbean, the region would be tapping new sources of private investment and development finance, at a time of deepening geopolitical and economic uncertainties. It would also further vindicate the logic of the Caribbean, including Jamaica, diversifying its global partnerships.

Africa, on its face, seems natural for this outreach, which CARICOM has begun through its engagement of the African Union (AU), including summits between the leaders to the two regions. These meetings were intended to be held annually, although there was a four-year gap between the first (2021) and the second (2025). This situation will hopefully be remedied.

On the economic front, there has been a greater sense of urgency. Following through on the AU’s symbolic declaration of the Diaspora as the sixth region of Africa, the African Export-Import Bank made the concept a formal part of its business strategy. It identified trade between Africa and the Caribbean as “as a core goal, reflecting a shared history and the potential for mutually reinforcing economic growth”.

Under an initiative energetically pursued Spearheaded by Afreximbank’s former president, Benedict Oramah, CARICOM’s independent members have signed (Jamaica was the last to do so in July 2025) partnership agreements, which placed them just a rung below shareholders.

FINANCING

These pacts allow the bank to provide financing for projects that facilitate the export and imports of goods and services between Africa and the Caribbean “through extending direct or indirect credit to eligible businesses in participating states”, as well as to other institutions.

Afreximbank has held investment conferences in the Caribbean – in the Bahamas and Grenada – over the past two years. It has also opened a regional office in Barbados and is also helping Caribbean central banks establish a regional payments system, modelled on one Afreximbank pioneered in Africa. That mechanism is increasingly being used by institutions across the continent.

At the CARICOM summit in St Kitts and Nevis last week, Dr Elombi disclosed that of the US$3 billion that his bank had previously earmarked for the Caribbean, which was to run until 2030, US$750 million was already disbursed. Additionally, there was “a robust pipeline of over $2 billion in transactions”. That influenced the decisions to raise the global cap for the region by another US$2 billion, “with the hope of achieving full utilisation over the next three to four years”.

Jamaica is apparently among the countries with projects for financing in Afreximbank’s pipeline, although the specifics haven’t been disclosed.

The US$5 billion allocated to CARICOM won’t cover the region’s capital needs for the building, rebuilding or hardening of infrastructure to support the modernisation of regional economies, or to recover from catastrophes, as in Jamaica’s situation in the wake of Hurricane Melissa. It is an important though, especially against the backdrop of the slowdown of Chinese investments in the region and the wariness of the Caribbean governments going to Beijing for loans in the face of America’s reassertion of hegemony in the Western Hemisphere and its warning to regional states it will look askance at any cosiness with China.

SOLELY RELY

While America’s muscle-flexing can’t be dismissed, neither can it be made to cripple the region’s drive for economic development. Nor can regional economies rely solely on the United States for their advancement.

And while it will take time to build partnerships that will significantly move the economic needle, deepened relations between Africa and the Caribbean widens options and enhances political solidarity.

Moreover, it has to start somewhere.

Which is why the possibility of Arise IIP, or the integrated energy solutions firm, Oando, or the Nigeria financial services conglomerate, Access Banks, looking for opportunities in the Caribbean should be welcome.

Ignorance of Africa’s business and economic environment will, understandably, cause many people to be cautious – wary even. Policymakers, entrepreneurs and astute business people must be honest about the knowledge gap and their fears and work hard to overcome them. In that regard, the government must engage the private on these matters and the opportunities that might open.

Further, any avenue opened by Afreximbank must be seen as a two-way street.