The Central Banks of Barbados and The Bahamas have agreed to a partnership to set up a pilot payment system platform to facilitate trade between the region and Africa.
Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley made the announcement recently, as she addressed the official launch of the Afreximbank CARICOM Office at Hilton Barbados Resort, Needham’s Point, St. Michael.
Ms. Mottley told the gathering and those tuning in virtually that the programme would allow African and regional traders “to be taken on the basis of settling net differences rather than having to look for hard currency for every single transaction”.
She explained that the CARICOM Multilateral Clearing Facility (CMCF) was established in the late 1970s as a centralised payments clearing and settlement accounting system that allowed CARICOM member states and firms to use local currencies to settle transactions, among other things.
However, the operations ended by 1983 and the Prime Minister insisted that a replacement facility was needed in the region to settle trade transactions with each other.
“I refer to the CARICOM Multilateral Clearing Facility only because had we had an entity such as Afreximbank at the time, to underwrite that facility, it might not have become dormant 30 years ago,” Ms. Mottley proffered.
She insisted that the opening of the bank was linked to Government’s Reclaiming Our Atlantic Destiny (ROAD) project, while pointing to the opportunities to be had by pursuing trading outside of traditional North Atlantic countries.
“For all of our independent life, our dealings focused on North Atlantic countries, everything went north. We determined that as we moved in the second or third generation of our independence that we were certainly old enough, with enough grey hair, to say for ourselves with whom we would want to trade, relate and be among,” Ms. Mottley stated.
The Prime Minister publicly thanked the President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Afreximbank, Dr. Benedict Oramah, for his assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic via the African Medical Supplies platform.
“This speaks not just to the passion but also the fact that the numbers and opportunities can work for both of us. This can be your platform for taking a far greater role in not just the Caribbean but the Americas, a must that will see you move from the $33 billion in assets to $60 billion by 2030,” Ms. Mottley underlined.
Meanwhile, Dr. Oramah spoke about the investments in the region, including a $200 million renewable energy project in St. Kitts, and others in tourism and hospitality, financial services, and creative industries.