One of Caricom’s most conservative member countries has taken its place in the queue to benefit from the emerging economic opportunities that are thought likely to arise out of the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Havana and Washington.
Recently, the Barbados Government used the opportunity of a courtesy call on its Industry Minister Donville Innis by Cuba’s resident Ambassador in Bridgetown Franscisco Fernandez Pena to express its desire to “forge deeper economic ties with Cuba” which, translated from the diplomatic jargon in which the pronouncement is couched, means, according to a report in a section of the Barbados media, engaging “robustly in trade.” The Barbados Government has already disclosed that several local companies are apparently queuing up to do business with the Caribbean island once considered to be an ideological pariah. Indeed, it has been confirmed that as of May this year Banks Breweries would be moving to export up to 1 million cases of beer to Cuba. A trade mission is currently being assembled in Barbados to visit Cuba.
Barbados and the rest of Caricom for that matter are likely to find the administration in Havana mindful of further strengthening ties that have formally been in place since 1972 when Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados led the way in the
