The Tribune

By ANNELIA NIXON

TRIBUNE Business Reporter

anixon@tribunemedia.net

GHANA and The Bahamas are moving to deepen trade and investment ties, with officials pushing to connect Caribbean businesses to African markets in the creative economy, agriculture, manufacturing and tourism.

King Kwasi Kyei Darkwah, Ghana’s presidential envoy to the Caribbean, and who visited The Bahamas this week as part of efforts to strengthen relationships with the region, said: “We’re here at the invitation of the African Caribbean Trade and Investment Corridor to help start a programme where we can do trade exchange between Ghana and the Caribbean.

“The Caribbean has specialities in many different fields of endeavour. But high amongst them is tourism, and Ghana also has specialisms in many fields of endeavour. And high among them is agriculture, manufacturing, fashion and design, as well as tourism.”

King Darkwah said the two regions could combine their strengths to create jobs and economic opportunities, with a newly-launched showroom serving as a platform to promote Bahamian and African designers. “We want to find ways of bringing our energies together, so we can work together to create more jobs for our people and to build economic prosperity for our people,” he said.

Senator Barry Griffin, The Bahamas’ trade commissioner, said the initiative is the result of increasing diplomatic and business engagement between Ghana and The Bahamas, including high-level meetings and visits by local business groups to Ghana.

“We’ve had very high level diplomatic meetings with Ghana, including the Prime Minister meeting with the president of Ghana,” Mr Griffin said. “We’ve had many of our business groups travel to Ghana, and I’m happy to say right now we are seeing the fruits of all of that work.”

Mr Griffin said the new showroom, which focuses on Ghana and Africa’s creative industries, represents a tangible outcome of those efforts and is intended to strengthen commercial ties between businesses in Ghana, The Bahamas and the wider Caribbean.

“Trade is a people-to-people partnership,” he said. “You must go to new markets. You must meet people. You must exchange views. You must learn about each other’s markets and culture and history, and build a foundation on friendship.”

Mr Griffin said Ghana’s fashion industry provides one example of the opportunities that could emerge from the relationship, particularly as The Bahamas seeks to develop its orange or creative economy.

“Ghana is known as one of the fashion and cultural hubs of Africa, and it’s a great pleasure and honour that we have such a high-level diplomatic representation from Ghana to show that the government of Ghana is very insistent on this trade relationship with The Bahamas, beginning with culture and beginning with the creative economy,” he added.

King Darkwah said the potential relationship extends beyond creative industries, noting that improved access to finance and larger markets could allow Caribbean entrepreneurs and manufacturers to scale their businesses.

“For every economy that you have, whether it’s green, whether it’s blue, or the orange economy, which I feel very strongly about, you also need resources,” he said. “So banking is very, very important.”

King Darkwah pointed to efforts by Ghanaian president, John Dramani Mahama, to strengthen economic links between Africa and the Caribbean, including plans to bring the latter’s member countries into the African Continental Free Trade Area.

He said greater integration could significantly expand the potential customer base for Bahamian entrepreneurs and manufacturers.

“If you are in the Caribbean and you have access to a market of, say, 19 to 20 million people, well, if you add the tourists that come here, that can extend to some 60 million people easily,” King Darkwah said. “Now you have access to a bigger market because Ghana is 35 million people, but once our president gets you into the African Continental Free Trade Area, you now have access to over 1.5bn people.”

King Darkwah said such market access could create opportunities for businesses ranging from fashion designers and manufacturers to documentary producers, artisans and food producers.

He also identified agricultural trade as another potential area for expansion, adding that greater movement of products between Africa and the Caribbean could diversify the sources of goods available in The Bahamas.

“We grow great produce, not GMO (genetically modified crops),” he said. “These are natural produce in Ghana, and if it is possible to transport them by ship or even by air, there is no reason why the good nutrition we have in Africa should not be here in The Bahamas.”

King Darkwah also highlighted the potential for African fashion brands to expand internationally, pointing to growing international interest in designers from Ghana and Nigeria.

He said access to financing is critical to turning those opportunities into commercial growth, particularly for small businesses seeking to produce at a larger scale.

Mr Griffin said the initiative also aligns with The Bahamas’ focus on the blue, green and orange economies, which are central themes of this year’s diplomatic engagement.

“The Bahamas has taken a keen interest in the coloured economies, particularly the orange economy, the blue economy and the green economy, and that is the theme of diplomatic week for this year,” he said.

“And so, this right now is showing how The Bahamas is reaching across borders, across seas to bring those ties, in particular in the orange economy and the creative economy.”

Mr Griffin said King Darkwah’s visit will also provide an opportunity for Ghana to gain a closer understanding of the Bahamian market, and obtain information on potential areas of co-operation to be taken back to Ghanaian authorities.

“We’re just very excited to have His Excellency here, who I had the pleasure of meeting with yesterday, to bring news from Ghana, to look at our markets himself first-hand, and take reports back to the president of Ghana on how the future of Ghana-Bahamas trade relations can work,” Mr Griffin said.