BARBADOS-Barbados to host global supply chain forum

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Barbados will host four high-level conferences to tackle the global supply chain crisis.

Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Minister Kerrie Symmonds said that the first Global Supply Chain Forum will occur here from May 21-24 and that Bridgetown has partnered with the United Nations Conference on Trade & Development [UNCTAD] to stage the event.

The Global Supply Chain Forum will bring stakeholders together to address financing, sustainable and resilient transport and logistics, trade facilitation, connectivity, digitalization, food security, climate change adaptation, and mitigation, and help developing countries prepare for the energy transition in international transport.

“We have begun to look at how we can restructure our supply chains. With the war in Ukraine, the cost of energy, petroleum products, gas, and diesel has increased. It makes it very difficult for industry here to operate because we are still heavily dependent on importing our fossil fuels,” Symmonds said.

Global supply chains continue to face challenges intensified by rising shipping costs, the Red Sea crisis, the war in Ukraine, and disruptions to crucial trade corridors, the Panama Canal and the Suez Canal. Supply chains serve an undeniably vital role in the global economy. Those countries that stand to feel the brunt hardest are small island developing states like Barbados.

Symmonds said that food security and the Caribbean’s heavy reliance on food importation from and through the United States underscore the importance of the supply chain system.

“Supply chains with countries like Suriname and Guyana, especially concerning food, are essential for us as a backstop that we traditionally rely on regarding the United States of America.”

”Changing the traditional dependency is a vital part of it (the Global Supply Chain Forum), and those are the types of discussions we need to have; it doesn’t happen overnight. We have to have the maritime or the marine ability to move goods from country to country within this region,” Symmonds added.