Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) coun­tries now have an ad­di­tion­al US$1.5 bil­lion in fi­nanc­ing avail­able to them af­ter Ja­maica be­came the lat­est coun­try to ac­cede to the part­ner­ship agree­ment be­tween Cari­com and the Egypt-based African Ex­port-Im­port Bank (Afrex­im­bank).

Ja­maica be­came the 13th mem­bers state to do so and with its as­cen­sion to the fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion with of­fi­cials say­ing an ad­di­tion­al US$1.5 bil­lion in fi­nanc­ing is now avail­able to the Caribbean re­gion.

Afrex­im­bank in­tro­duced the part­ner­ship agree­ment in 2022, fol­low­ing the African Union’s 2008 res­o­lu­tion des­ig­nat­ing the African Di­as­po­ra as the sixth re­gion of the con­ti­nent.

The move, so­lid­i­fied through the sign­ing of a mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing dur­ing this month’s Cari­com sum­mit that was held in Mon­tego Bay, Ja­maica, push­es to­tal avail­able funds for the re­gion to US$3 bil­lion US dol­lars, aimed at deep­en­ing trade and in­vest­ment ties be­tween Africa and the Caribbean.

Pres­i­dent and chair­man of the Board of Afrex­im­bank, Pro­fes­sor Bene­dict Okechuk­wu Oramah, de­scribed Ja­maica’s sig­na­ture to the agree­ment as “an in­cred­i­ble op­por­tu­ni­ty for even greater trans­for­ma­tive im­pact”.

He said that it strate­gi­cal­ly po­si­tions the bank to deep­en its fi­nan­cial en­gage­ment in the re­gion, in­clud­ing po­ten­tial long-term cap­i­tal in­vest­ments to sup­port the growth and de­vel­op­ment of SMEs in Ja­maica.

Echo­ing the sen­ti­ment, Okechuk­wu Ihe­jiri­ka, act­ing chief op­er­at­ing of­fi­cer for Afrex­im­bank’s Bar­ba­dos-based Caribbean Of­fice, said the ini­tia­tive Afrex­im­bank has tak­en in com­ing to the re­gion “is some­thing that no oth­er in­sti­tu­tion can make hap­pen apart from Afrex­im­bank”.

He said he was hap­py for the re­sponse from the gov­ern­ments in the Cari­com re­gion.

“That shows that we are now ready to forge a greater part­ner­ship be­tween Africa and Cari­com. This is some­thing no oth­er en­ti­ty can do for us and we are now ris­ing up to the chal­lenge,” Ihe­jiri­ka said.

Ja­maica’s Prime Min­is­ters An­drew Hol­ness, stressed the im­por­tance of mov­ing be­yond the sign­ing of the agree­ment to im­ple­ment­ing prac­ti­cal mech­a­nisms for trade.

These, he not­ed, in­clude set­tle­ment in lo­cal cur­ren­cies, cross-list­ings on re­gion­al stock ex­changes, and har­monised stan­dards to re­duce non-tar­iff bar­ri­ers.

Row­ley was against join­ing

T&T is one of two Cari­com states not to ac­cede to the part­ner­ship agree­ment be­tween Cari­com and Afre­exm­bank.

In June last year, for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley was asked why T&T had not joined most of its re­gion­al neigh­bours in sign­ing up to the African Ex­port-Im­port Bank (Afrex­im­bank).

He said the rea­son was that the fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion want­ed its em­ploy­ees based in T&T, both lo­cal and for­eign, to earn tax-free salaries.

Dur­ing a post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence, T&T’s Prime Min­is­ter said the re­la­tion­ship be­tween Africa and Cari­com is ex­treme­ly close in the fi­nan­cial area as both re­gions are try­ing to in­vite in­vest­ment, grow trade, and strength­en diplo­ma­cy to work as a unit.

“You would see how it worked for COVID-19, as we had to re­ly on South Africa for our ma­jor batch of vac­cines,” the prime min­is­ter high­light­ed.

How­ev­er, Row­ley not­ed that the dif­fi­cul­ty be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced with Afrex­im­bank is that the bank is ask­ing for all its staff to earn tax-free salaries in this coun­try.

“I do not know why the bank is tak­ing that po­si­tion, but that is the bank’s po­si­tion, that its staff whether lo­cal or for­eign, would not pay tax in the coun­try. That has far-reach­ing con­se­quences be­cause it is against the ex­ist­ing arrange­ments of priv­i­leges and im­mu­ni­ties and poli­cies.

“We have sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al agen­cies that re­side in Trinidad and To­ba­go and con­duct busi­ness here. The law and the poli­cies are if you are a for­eign­er work­ing with the agency, you will not be taxed in T&T, but lo­cal peo­ple work­ing for the UN or the OAS, you are tax­able in this coun­try,” the prime min­is­ter ex­plained.

Row­ley said that if the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance were to agree to the lo­cals not pay­ing tax­es, it would have far-reach­ing con­se­quences for every­one. He not­ed that the Gov­ern­ment is not pre­pared at this time to ap­prove such arrange­ments.

He said, in small­er ter­ri­to­ries where they do not have this prob­lem, it is eas­i­er to say “yes” to the bank on this pro­pos­al.

“It is not so easy for us, so please do not com­pare us to St Kitts, be­cause they do not have the same prob­lem. We have a large con­tin­gent of peo­ple that would be af­fect­ed by this move. We are not an­ti-bank. I met with the head of the bank some months ago at my of­fice, and we are quite keen to have the bank func­tion in the coun­try, but the terms must be ac­cept­able,” Row­ley added. (CMC)