Speech: “Grand Bahamas Vision – A Gateway for Africa and the Caribbean”

Excellencies, distinguished leaders, brothers and sisters across the Atlantic,

Last month, I was privileged to participate in the fourth Afri-Caribbean Trade and Investment Forum held in the paradise island of Grenada in the Caribbean. It is at this Forum that I learnt of the vision of the Grand Bahamas – a vision to create a trade and logistics hub connecting the African continent and the Caribbean by the year 2027.

In 2027, through funding by Afreximbank, the Grand Bahama will unveil an Afro-Caribbean Marketplace and Logistics for 20 Caribbean islands, 16 Bahamas island destinations and 55 African countries. This Afro-Caribbean Marketplace and Logistics Center will also serve as a conduit for B2B opportunities, it will become a promotional office as well as a foreign affairs office for many countries that do not have a presence in the Caribbean region. Grand Bahama has recently invested over $3 billion in this vision, much of it in the tourism sector, because there is an expectation to have over six million annual visitors to Grand Bahama by 2028.

This, excellencies and honourable guests, is the marketplace of tomorrow where the African Continental Free Trade Area is connected with CARICOM markets, creating a South-South Corridor for goods, culture and technology.

Imagine a marketplace where goods from Accra and Lagos meet goods from Kingston and Port of Spain.
• Ghanaian cocoa refined into chocolate bars that line supermarket shelves in Nassau.
• Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee traded alongside Ethiopian beans in a premium global brand.
• Guyanese rice and Barbadian rum moving seamlessly into African supermarkets, while Nigerian textiles and Senegalese leather grace Caribbean fashion runways.

This marketplace can also serve as the Logistics Hub of Connectivity. The Grand Bahamas lies at a strategic crossroads: the Caribbean gateway to North America, Central America, and Europe. With investment in modern logistics infrastructure, it can become the port of first call for African goods entering the Western Hemisphere and for Caribbean goods reaching African shores.

To attain this, we as Africa look forward to collaborating with the Caribbean to develop deepwater ports and smart warehousing systems in Freeport, enabling faster shipping turnaround. We must further collaborate to launch Africa–Caribbean shipping lines to reduce reliance on costly transshipment through regions of the North. We must establish a Caribbean–African Aviation Corridor, linking Freeport to Lagos, Accra, Nairobi, and Johannesburg.
• We can mobilize resources through sovereign wealth funds, diaspora bonds, and blended finance mechanisms.
• The hub can be powered by renewable energy, making it a model of green logistics – where green hydrogen from South Africa and Namibia fuels Caribbean grids and Guyanese oil revenues seed African renewable energy parks.
• Public-private partnerships will ensure that this is not just a government dream, but a people’s project.

Such a hub is more than economics—it is diplomacy by design, cementing Africa–Caribbean ties in tangible ways.
• It will strengthen South–South cooperation, reducing dependency on external middlemen.
• It will create thousands of jobs in transport, warehousing, trade, and digital services.
• It will stimulate cultural diplomacy, as art, music, food, and ideas cross the same seas that once divided us.

Excellencies, pragmatism is what will cement the future of Africa-Caribbean relations. Together, we represent over 1.6 billion people, nearly 20% of the world’s population yet account for less than 5% of global GDP. Our expected action, therefore is urgent.

Let us seize this moment to turn solidarity into strategy and strategy into real action and tangible projects. When Africa and the Caribbean move together, we redefine what global prosperity looks like and we redefine the future of multilateralism.

I thank you.