Even as she sounded a distinct note of optimism in the matter of the push to further cement trade and deeper business ties between Africa and the Caribbean, Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretary General Dr. Carla Barnett last Friday told the Second Afri-Caribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF) in Barbados that the task of actualizing the envisaged linkages between the two regions will not be “an easy one.”
Pointing out that trade relations between CARICOM and Africa “are slowly emerging from the patterns that were embedded in our colonial arrangements’ and which have “carried over into our post-colonial economic realities,” Dr. Barnett said that if the ambitions of ACTIF are to be realized “we must reset these systems and foster real South-South cooperation.”
