The Caribbean Council Joins APPG Meeting in Parliament

The Caribbean Council recently attended a Caribbean-focussed event at Parliament with the APPG (All Party Parliamentary Group). Chris Bennett joined MP Juliet Campbell (Member of Parliament for Broxtowe) and Cara Haslam as a keynote speaker presenting the Caribbean Council membership and our involvement in promoting two-way trade and investment between the UK and the Caribbean. 

We are pleased to outline below several interesting statistics on Caribbean imports and trade opportunities in the current market. 

Presentation Highlights: Caribbean Overview 

In the last 25 years – The Commonwealth Caribbean imports have tripled to USD 36bn.   The UK has a declining share of this market – now down to 1.75% (from around 5%).  Whilst China and US have significantly expanded their market share with 13% and 46% respectively. 

Over the same period, the UK has seen traditional imports from the Commonwealth Caribbean such as sugar and bananas in significant decline.  Other imports such as rum, sauces and beauty products have held up well.     

Somewhat surprisingly, the biggest export from the Commonwealth Caribbean to the UK however now is oil and gas representing in 2024 over 80% of the region’s USD 1.6billion exports to the UK.

There is a vibrant trade in services between the UK and the Caribbean across tourism, legal services, banking, engineering, construction, and evolving sectors such as edtech, cybersecurity, climate finance and digitisation.  This trade is two-way, and Caribbean firms are opening new businesses in the UK in areas such as shipping, banking, fintech and others, including most recently draft beer in the form of CARIB Beer. 

Opportunities to further boost the trade and investment relationship are being boosted by a number of initiatives which the UK Government has set in motion including:

  • The Economic Partnership Agreement which offers UK and CARICOM exporters duty free access in each others markets – making their products substantially more competitive against competitors without this duty cut. 
  • UK Export Finance proactive work to support UK exporters and projects which necessitate UK inputs and ensure that financing is available. 
  • UK Caribbean Infrastructure Fund which provided substantial grant support for vitally needed infrastructure projects which will result in large-scale productivity gains
  • British International Investment’s commitment to include the Caribbean in its investment programme for 2022-2026 as part of a global $7.5billion investment programme. 

If you have any questions or comments regarding this post, please feel free to contact our team on team@caribbean-council.org