Aleem Khan

The Caribbean Ex­port De­vel­op­ment Agency (Caribbean Ex­port) will spon­sor one rep­re­sen­ta­tive from each of five Car­i­fo­rum busi­ness sup­port or­gan­i­sa­tions (BSOs) to par­tic­i­pate in the 8th Chi­na-Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (LAC) Busi­ness Sum­mit to be held Sep­tem­ber 12 and 13 in Chang­sha City, Hu­nan Province, Chi­na, the agency said in an e-mail to its stake­hold­ers.Car­i­fo­rum is made up of the 15 coun­tries of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) plus the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

"Caribbean Ex­port will spon­sor a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from five Car­i­fo­rum BSOs to par­tic­i­pate in this event."The aim of this ini­tia­tive is to build the ca­pac­i­ty of five Car­i­fo­rum BSOs to strate­gi­cal­ly tar­get and pen­e­trate new mar­kets, like Chi­na, for ex­ports, in­vest­ments and to find part­ners in Chi­na in ar­eas such as sup­pli­ers of raw ma­te­ri­als," the e-mail said.The theme of the sum­mit is: "From Quan­ti­ty to Qual­i­ty, Greater Co­op­er­a­tive Po­ten­tial, Greater In­ter­est Con­ver­gence."

The fo­cus for in­vest­ments and ex­ports in­clude: pri­or­i­ty niche goods ex­ports, in­clud­ing cof­fee (both reg­u­lar and lux­u­ry brand­ed); pack­aged fruits and veg­eta­bles; flow­ers (or­na­men­tal and ex­ot­ic); spices; lux­u­ry brand­ed rum; re­new­able en­er­gy (such as so­lar and wind pow­er); fi­nan­cial ser­vices (in par­tic­u­lar off­shore fi­nan­cial ser­vices); tourism; mar­itime con­struc­tion (in­clud­ing ports); and com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

To be se­lect­ed as one of the five BSOs to be spon­sored, the or­gan­i­sa­tion must demon­strate that it has strate­gic op­por­tu­ni­ties in, and/or is cur­rent­ly de­vel­op­ing projects in the sec­tors iden­ti­fied.