CARIBBEAN-Mottley urges Caribbean people to invest in CARICOM Development Fund.

GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley Monday said Caribbean Community (CARICOM) nationals should consider investing their savings in the CARICOM Development Fund (CDF) rather than leaving it in financial institutions that offer almost no interest.

Addressing the opening of the the two-day AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF23) here, Motley said that the CDF has become a shareholder of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), of which 11 CARICOM nations are also members.

Mottley said she feels that the CDF is the glue that holds the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) that allows for the free movement of goods, labor, services and finances across the 15-member grouping.

“And if there is one great regret that I have, it is that it has taken us too long to be able to come up with a mechanism to allow us to be able to have Caribbean people also be able to participate in a financing mechanism through which the CARICOM Development Fund can play the critical role that must play under Chapter Seven of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas,” she said, mentioning the accord that brought the CMSE into being.

“We have one of the most successful single markets in the world,” Mottle said of CARICOM, which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year.

“Don’t fool ourselves; after the European Union, ours is perhaps still the most successful. Africa has now committed to it. We have been going for some time,” she said, adding that the revised treaty resolved one of the issues that caused difficulties for the CSME.

“And it is a genius idea for the crafters of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas. However much you integrate, there will be winners and losers. And we found a formula to identify disadvantaged countries, regions, and sectors,” Mottley said.

She noted that under the CDF, disadvantaged countries, sectors, or regions are entitled to be able to borrow at concessional rates to finance their development.

Mottley said that when the CDF was started, former Barbados prime minister, the late Owen Arthur, and other regional leaders tried to help with its financing.

“But many of our friends globally have not seen the need or urgency to support the region in tangible ways concerning the CARICOM Development Fund,” Mottley said.

“And that is why we said that we needed to turn within the region and to create an opportunity where those persons who have money in savings accounts in the region and are receiving 0.0001 percent might well recognize that there’s an opportunity to get a more significant percentage return on interest if they involve themselves in things about CARICOM development.

“I hope that with the work done by the CARICOM Development Fund and USAID (United States Agency for International Development), we can reach that stage,” Mottley said.

The Barbados prime minister said that, more importantly, she hopes that with the CDF being a shareholder of Afreximbank, there can be innovative ways to tap into the significant amount of savings and liquidity lying dormant in CARICOM.

These savings, she said, are “laying dormant, not receiving proper interest rates and not, therefore, being able to work for itself, particularly in an inflationary environment, such as the one in which we find ourselves today, at the same time, with a development deficit that needs financing.”

She noted that the President of Guyana, Irfaan Ali, speaking in the same ceremony, had pointed out that there is a funding gap of US$4.2 billion in Latin America and the Caribbean as regards the attainment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)by the 2030 target date.

“I say to you that one of the reasons we went to Paris in June of this year was to be able not to discuss the planet alone but the planet and people because you may find yourselves winning one battle and losing the other. So I hope, therefore, that we can move in this direction to deepen the relationship.”

Mottley noted that governors of central banks in CARICOM are scheduled to meet in Jamaica on Wednesday even as several CARICOM nations have “already accepted the wisdom of the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS).”

The prime minister expressed hope that the central bank governors will have a fuller discussion, adding, “Because and it is appropriate that I say so where we are in the headquarters of CARICOM, the CARICOM multilateral clearing facility was intended to be able to facilitate trade in the region without the hard currency reliance.

“It is as valid today a problem to be resolved as it was decades ago when the CMCF was implemented. And I believe that the Pan African payment settlement system is critical for us to examine because, above anything else, we need someone prepared to underwrite the trade.

“And effectively, that is what you have done with the PAPPS system in Africa, significantly improving trade opportunities within Africa. And we believe the same can be possible here in the Caribbean,” Mottley said.

ACTIF23 is being held under the theme “Creating a Shared Prosperous Future” and is convened by Afreximbank and the Government of Guyana.

ACTIF23 focuses on consolidating commercial collaboration between the Caribbean region and Africa for increased inter-regional trade and investment, building on the successes of the inaugural edition held in Barbados in September 2022.