BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – The Pan-African multilateral bank, African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), says it is increasing its regional financing limit with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) over the next four years.
In announcing the increase from three million US dollars, Afreximbank said ‘the enhanced commitment builds on more than US$750 million already disbursed across the region and a robust pipeline of over two billion US dollars in transactions currently under execution, signaling a decisive scale-up of support to governments and the private sector”.
The new Afreximbank announcement was first made during last week’s Caribbean Community (CARICOM) summit held in St. Kitts and Nevis, when the bank’s president, Dr. George Elombi, said that the financial institution’s aim in the years ahead was to expand that support significantly.
“We will, therefore, increase the global limit to this region from the current three billion US dollars to five billion US dollars, with the hope of achieving full utilisation over the next three to four years,” he told the regional leaders then.
Elombi said that the bank’s vision for the next decade was “to change the structure of our economies,” saying that it would invest in value addition or processing of agricultural outputs and natural resources with the aim “to retain significant value from these resources in our economies, generate wealth for our people, create jobs, and improve their livelihoods, with spillover impacts on government revenues and investments”.
According to the statement, Afreximbank’s specific interventions would include developing healthcare facilities in Barbados, Guyana, and Grenada; supporting tourism projects in Barbados, Grenada, Bahamas, and Antigua and Barbuda; and financing agro-processing projects and logistics facilities in Barbados, Guyana, Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Kitts and Nevis.
It will also aim to support infrastructure development, including power generation and distribution, road projects, conference facilities, and trade centres, in Grenada, Jamaica, the Bahamas, and Suriname.
The bank’s intervention will also be to provide financing support for banks in Suriname, St Lucia, Grenada, and Dominica, including a small and medium enterprises (SME) focused on-lending facility to development banks in the region; supporting local content promotion in natural resource rich countries to retain maximum value in the region by empowering local entrepreneurs to participate actively in the sectors and working on a framework for the implementation of sea and air interconnectivity within the Caribbean.
The statement quoted Elombi as saying that following a meeting with the leadership of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), Afreximbank had agreed to support the implementation of the regional development strategy aimed at doubling the size of the region’s economy within a decade.
“That support would include investments in infrastructure development, power generation and distribution, agricultural production, and production processing.”
Elombi reaffirmed Afreximbank’s commitment to developing the Afreximbank African Trade Centre in Barbados to consolidate its presence in the region.
St Kitts and Nevis is set to host the fifth Afric-Caribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF2026) in July this year, bringing together Global Africa. It will feature panel discussions, business matchmaking sessions, cultural showcases, and deal signings.
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