Editorial | Economic potential in Africa

Jamaica’s plan to dispatch a trade mission to Ghana next month is a potentially important development, not only for the island but for the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). It can help to energise recent initiatives to expand economic relations between the Caribbean and Africa.

Framed differently, the Jamaican mission may be made to go beyond bilateral possibilities, serving as a starting point for accelerating and widening the region’s engagement with the Global South at a time of deepening uncertainty over the old international order and the rules-based system it sustained.

The proposed trip by senior government trade and investment officials, along with at least 38 companies, was announced last week by Jamaica’s foreign affairs and foreign trade minister, Kamina Johnson Smith, when she addressed the biennial conference of diaspora Jamaicans.

“... They will be meeting with investors, distribution companies, and the Ghanaian private sector, with the concurrence and support of Ghana’s export promotion authorities,” Ms Johnson Smith said.

At present, there is little trade or other economic activity between Jamaica and Ghana, and, for that matter, between CARICOM and Africa. The limited engagement that exists between Kingston and Accra is largely a one-way flow, reflected in the estimated US$25 million annually in alumina that Jamaica sells to Ghana. Ghana’s exports to Jamaica in 2025 did not exceed US$100,000.

It is not that Jamaica and Ghana have not attempted to expand their economic relations beyond their joint membership of the Commonwealth and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), which negotiated trade and aid deals with the European Union (EU). In 2005, for instance, they established a joint commission to explore partnerships, but that initiative largely faltered and fell into abeyance. It is now being revived.

In the 2010s, the Jamaican food and financial services conglomerate GraceKennedy established operations in Ghana, hoping to use it as a base for deeper forays into West Africa. That initiative, too, faltered.

More recently, however, there appears to be a reawakening of interest among Jamaicans in doing business in Ghana. A Jamaica-based gaming company, according to Johnson Smith, has successfully established itself in the country, while individual entrepreneurs are also exploring opportunities in the West African state.

“It is clear that the times have changed, the systems have changed, and the trust factors have changed,” the minister said. “... It is therefore important for us to harness this moment.”

A number of geopolitical and socio-cultural factors are helping to galvanise this moment. Recently, Ghana has emerged as a major proponent of reparations to African and Caribbean countries for chattel slavery, joining CARICOM in that effort.

In May, it was a key sponsor of a United Nations resolution that called slavery “the gravest crime against humanity”. Last week, African and Caribbean countries met in Accra to discuss initiatives for advancing the reparations agenda.

A more significant catalyst for accelerating deeper political and economic relations between the Caribbean and Africa is the return of Donald Trump as president of the United States.

Flexing America’s might, Mr Trump has upended international arrangements from which developing countries expected some level of protection against the arbitrary actions of powerful nations. His unilateral imposition of tariffs on countries, bypassing the World Trade Organization (WTO), is one example.

In that context, it makes sense for countries of the global south, and the kith and kin of Africa and the Caribbean, to pool their common interests to help influence the shape of the new order that will replace the current one. Beyond the economic possibilities inherent in the venture, geopolitical considerations add further weight to trade and economic missions like the one being mounted by Jamaica.

On the economic side, CARICOM–Africa cooperation has support from the Africa Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), with which CARICOM members have signed partnership agreements, just short of full membership.

The bank has declared the Caribbean, with its African diaspora, the continent’s sixth region, thus making it eligible for its investments. In February, it raised by two-thirds to US$5 billion its financing cap for the Caribbean over the next four years.

Afreximbank has also been attempting to steer major African companies with which it has relations to invest in the Caribbean, while encouraging the expansion of trade between the two regions. It has argued that, given the low base of trade and investment, there are opportunities to be tapped.

A 2020 analysis by Afreximbank and the International Trade Centre (ITC) found that less than one per cent of the Caribbean’s exports went to Africa, while Africa’s exports to the region accounted for just 0.08 per cent of its total exports. On both sides, trade was limited to a few products, most of which were unprocessed, thereby missing opportunities for value-added production.

In its 2024 report, Afreximbank estimated that the Caribbean holds a potential market for Africa of US$546 million, while Africa offers the Caribbean a potential market of US$496 million.

The bank, however, calculated that 57 per cent of the unrealised potential results from trade frictions linked to logistical, procedural, and infrastructure challenges.

On the basis of this analysis, there is much on the table for the Caribbean, including Jamaica. The planned mission to Ghana is, therefore, a sound starting point.

The global environment suggests that Jamaica and CARICOM should be far more aggressive in advancing their economic interests.