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The Real Wake-Up Call Is About Caribbean Capital

By CARICOM, news, Press Release, pressreleaseNo Comments

A response to Ambassador Daven Joseph’s “The $3 Billion Wake-Up Call: Who Owns Caribbean Tourism?”

by Dr. Patrick Antoine, CEO and Technical Director, CARICOM Private Sector Organization

Bridgetown, Barbados, 29 September 2026 – Ambassador Joseph has rendered an important public service to our Community. His questions about vertical integration, cruise pricing and enclave economics in the Sandals transaction deserve serious consideration, and the CARICOM Private Sector Organization (CPSO) does not regard scrutiny and celebration as rivals. Our statement congratulated Sandals because the transaction proves something the Region should not minimise: a Caribbean-built enterprise now commands a valuation of US $6 billion. From this point of legitimate celebration, we can move to the harder questions.

Three points of fact first. The transaction is a 50/50 joint venture with joint governance. It is not a sale of control. The protections which the Ambassador suggests, with regard to procurement, tax residence and brand stewardship, are matters for the Shareholders’ Agreement. Several of his proposals, notably annual public reporting on employment, local sourcing and taxes paid by jurisdiction, are reasonable and consistent with positions the CPSO has long advanced.  The concerns raised about loyalty programmes, however, rest on a misreading of how such programmes operate. Loyalty schemes work by incentive, not by compulsion. No operator can compel a loyalty member to book anything.: An enterprise may create attractive incentives, but the customer remains free at every point to choose between competing offers. That is competition working, not competition being foreclosed.

I would further argue that Ambassador Joseph’s article walks past the main issue in the transaction; the one that should concern us most. Why did US $3 billion have to come from Miami, financed through Morgan Stanley? The answer is that no Caribbean capital market could write that cheque. Our regional stock exchanges in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Guyana and the Eastern Caribbean are individually shallow and mutually fragmented, while regional savings held by national insurance schemes, pension funds and insurers sit substantially in sovereign paper and bank deposits. A Caribbean champion needing growth capital at scale therefore faces two options: sell its equity abroad or stay small.

Time and time again, our best firms confront that choice, and rather than staying small, they are forced to look overseas. The result of this is that the equity migrates. The ownership question the Ambassador raises is, at root, a capital markets question. The Revised Treaty promises free movement of capital, but the market infrastructure to give effect to it has not yet been built. The CPSO is acting on this directly, working with the Inter-American Development Bank and the Caribbean Development Bank on Phase I of the CARICOM Regional Capital Market Integration Project, covering benchmarking, the operating model and the infrastructure specification for an integrated regional market.

Smaller markets than ours are integrating rather than resigning themselves to capital constraint, or to the periphery of rapidly advancing global markets. African exchanges are doing so through the African Exchanges Linkage Project. The objective is plain: the next Sandals should be able to raise its billions at home, and Caribbean pension contributors, not only Miami shareholders, should hold the equity of Caribbean tourism.

On the issue of leakage, the CPSO prefers to rely on measurement. Our Tourism Satellite Account-based assessment of tourism-agriculture linkages quantifies, country by country, how much tourism food demand is captured domestically and how much leaks to imports. The finding is sobering, and it holds for every model, all-inclusive, cruise and independent alike: where local supply capacity is absent, every visitor dollar leaks.

Linkages are built through the kind of supply-side investment being pursued under CARICOM’s Twenty-Five by 2025 Plus Five Agenda to reduce the extra-regional food import bill. While the observation is relevant, the connection to the Sandals transaction is misplaced, since the linkages sought cannot be legislated into existence and will remain absent without the requisite CARICOM production and supply capacity, regardless of the business model pursued.

The CPSO speaks here from direct engagement: we have worked with Sandals on the quantification of linkages and have seen first-hand, the extent to which the company works to develop them, improving both the quantity and the quality of supply in local markets.

With regard to the head tax, the Ambassador’s instinct for collective action is correct, and such levies are now globally mainstream rather than radical. Greece has levied €20 per cruise passenger at Santorini and Mykonos in peak season since July 2025. Mexico’s federal cruise passenger levy is being phased upward from US$5 toward US$21.  Haines, Alaska, charges US$9, rising to US$13, atop the state’s per-passenger excise, and the US Virgin Islands raised wharfage and ship dues in 2025. Destinations everywhere are pricing the externality. The lesson for CARICOM and the OECS is coordination: a region that negotiates as one cannot be picked off port by port, and itinerary retaliation loses its force when there is no undercutting neighbour to sail to.

So yes, this is a wake-up call. The summons, however, is not to an overly defensive posture. It is to build the financial architecture of ownership: integrate the Region’s capital markets, mobilise regional savings into regional equity, coordinate cruise pricing and invest in the supply linkages that keep the visitor dollar onshore. Do that, and the next US$6 billion valuation will not need to look abroad for its capital. The question of “who owns Caribbean tourism” will be answered: “We do.”

-END-

September 29, 2026

CPSO Congratulates Sandals Resorts on Landmark Partnership with Royal Caribbean Group

By CARICOM, news, Press Release, pressreleaseNo Comments

Bridgetown, Barbados, 24 September 2026 – The CARICOM Private Sector Organization (CPSO) extends warm congratulations to Executive Chairman Adam Stewart and the entire Sandals Resorts and Beaches Resorts team on the announcement of a landmark partnership with Royal Caribbean Group, under which Royal Caribbean Group will make a 50 per cent investment in the all-inclusive resort enterprise, valued at approximately US$3 billion and expected to close in early 2027, subject to customary approvals.

This transaction, which implies a valuation of some US$6 billion for a company conceived, built and headquartered in the Caribbean, is a defining moment for the regional private sector. It affirms what the CPSO has long maintained: that CARICOM enterprise, when permitted to scale across the Single Market and Economy, can command a place among the foremost names in global business. The late Honourable Gordon “Butch” Stewart, O.J., founded Sandals on the conviction that a Caribbean company, a Caribbean Brand, could stand on the world stage. This partnership is the emphatic vindication of that conviction, and a tribute to the stewardship of Adam Stewart and his team.

For tourism, the Region’s largest export sector and principal earner of foreign exchange, the partnership brings together two category-defining leaders: Sandals and Beaches Resorts, the Caribbean’s leading all-inclusive resort brands, and Royal Caribbean Group, with its global vacation platform. The CPSO anticipates that the combined reach of the two companies will expand visitor arrivals, lengthen stays, deepen airlift and cruise connectivity, and multiply demand across CARICOM destinations, including Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Lucia, The Bahamas, Barbados, Grenada, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

For CARICOM and the CSME, the significance extends well beyond tourism. The partnership demonstrates the CSME working as intended: a regional firm using the Single Market as its platform for growth, attracting world-scale capital on world-scale terms. It is a powerful signal to international investors of the bankability of Caribbean assets, Caribbean management and Caribbean brands. The CPSO also sees in this development a renewed opportunity to deepen the linkages between tourism and regional production, in agriculture, agro-processing, manufacturing and services, so that the gains from expanded visitor demand are retained and multiplied within the Community.

In an era of intensifying global market integration, the Caribbean cannot stand apart from the consolidation reshaping the international travel and hospitality industry. The choice before the Region is whether its enterprises participate in that integration as owners and partners, or merely as hosts. Sandals has answered decisively, entering this new chapter with its Caribbean identity, leadership and headquarters intact, and with governance shared at the highest level.

“This is a proud day for the CARICOM private sector,” said Dr. Patrick Antoine, CEO and Technical Director of the CPSO. “Sandals is proof that the Caribbean produces not only world-class destinations but world-class companies. We congratulate Adam Stewart and his team, and we stand ready to work with them to ensure that this historic partnership translates into jobs, supply-chain opportunities and enduring prosperity for the people of our Community.”

The CPSO, an Associate Institution of CARICOM, represents the organised private sector in the governance of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy.

– END- 

 

September 24, 2026

Panama Canal Restrictions Put Up to US$10 Billion of CARICOM Imports at Risk, CPSO Warns

By CARICOM, news, Press Release, pressrelease, TradeNo Comments

Bridgetown, Barbados — Between US$8 billion and US$10 billion of the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM’s) annual imports, roughly one quarter to one third of the Region’s non-fuel import bill are exposed to the transit restrictions now taking effect at the Panama Canal, according to preliminary analysis by the CARICOM Private Sector Organization (CPSO). The CPSO is advising importers and governments to plan for higher landed costs and thinner inventories through the 2027 dry season.

The Panama Canal Authority’s Advisory A-29-2026 caps daily transits at 34 vessels for booking dates from 4 September, falling to 32 from 15 September. Rainfall in the canal watershed has run 34% below the historical average from May through August, with inflows 44% below. The Authority has warned that the expected intensity of the 2026 to 2027 El Niño could further reduce water availability during the next dry season, from January to April 2027.

The cost signals are already visible. A priority auction slot recently fetched US$5.3 million, reported as the highest bid ever recorded, and CMA CGM, MSC and Hapag-Lloyd have each announced per-TEU surcharges on canal-dependent routes, with further increases expected as draft limits tighten.

“Auction premiums and low-water surcharges do not stay on the carriers’ books,” said Dr. Patrick Antoine, CEO and Technical Director of the CPSO. “They are passed down the chain to importers, to distributors, and ultimately to the Caribbean consumer. When slot scarcity forces carriers to reroute or rationalise port calls, small Caribbean markets are typically the first to lose frequency and the last to regain it.”

CARICOM economies are among the most import-dependent in the world. Food, manufactured goods and construction inputs reach regional shelves largely on transshipment networks routed through or priced off the Panama Canal. The CPSO estimate covers both cargo transiting the Canal directly, between US$4.5 billion and US$7 billion a year, and Canal-transited cargo consolidated through United States ports before onward shipment to the Region. The risk to consumers is twofold: availability, through longer lead times and thinner inventories; and price, as surcharges and longer voyages feed into landed costs.

The Canal is not the only constraint. With shipping through the Strait of Hormuz also disrupted, two of the world’s critical maritime trade corridors are under pressure simultaneously, one by climate and one by conflict, lifting freight rates, war-risk premiums and fuel costs globally. For petroleum-importing CARICOM states, that compounds pressure on electricity, transport and food prices at the same time.

The CPSO presented its Derisking CSME Imports methodology to the CARICOM Heads of Government Breakfast Meeting in Saint Lucia in July 2026. The framework maps the Community’s exposure to extra-regional supply shocks and identifies, product by product, where intra-regional production and alternative supply corridors can substitute for vulnerable long-haul imports.

“Every percentage point of import demand we can shift to regional supply is a percentage point insulated from canal auctions, low-water surcharges and chokepoint conflict,” Dr. Antoine said. “Regional resilience is not built during a crisis. It is built before one.”

The CPSO is urging importers to engage carriers and logistics providers now on routing, surcharge exposure and inventory planning for the fourth quarter of 2026 and the 2027 dry season. The Organisation continues to advance the Region’s connectivity agenda with CARICOM Heads of Government,   the World Bank’s Caribbean Reconnect Programme, and support to the Regional Ferry Service initiative now before Heads.

 

About the CARICOM Private Sector Organization:

The CARICOM Private Sector Organization (CPSO) is the most recently accredited Associate Institution of the Caribbean Community. The CPSO is a ‘Service Organization’ to mobilize and advance private sector participation in CARICOM, with a mandate to contribute to the full implementation of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME). The Membership of the CPSO is comprised of private sector entities operating in the CARICOM space, including Micro, Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (MSMEs).

For media enquiries, please contact:

The CPSO Secretariat Email: info@thecpso.org | website: www.thecpso.org

-END

September 9, 2026

CPSO Celebrates Africa-CARICOM Day 2026

By Africa Union-CARICOM Trade, Areas of Work, CARICOM, Press Release, pressreleaseNo Comments

Bridgetown, Barbados — The CARICOM Private Sector Organization (CPSO) joins the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the African Union, and the people of Africa and the Caribbean in commemorating Africa-CARICOM Day 2026, celebrating the deep historical and cultural bonds between our peoples while reaffirming our commitment to transforming those bonds into enduring economic partnerships.

For the CPSO, this Day carries particular significance.

Over the past year, the CPSO, together with the Africa Business Council, the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) and the International Trade Centre, has worked to identify and advance concrete opportunities for the people and businesses of our Regions on both sides of the Atlantic. Our combined efforts have brought businesses from both Regions together to examine real opportunities to build greater economic resilience, expand South-South trade and investment, and diversify our markets and supply chains.

In agribusiness sector, CPSO research has identified approximately US$322 million in potential trade opportunities between the two Regions. At the same time, emerging collaboration in areas including agriculture and agro-processing, beauty and fashion, technology, intellectual property, finance and business services demonstrates that the possibilities extend well beyond the movement of commodities.

As we continue to examine markets, identify partners, and confront practical barriers such as limited direct maritime and air connectivity and regulatory fragmentation, sustained engagement will be critical. Deepening business-to-business matchmaking, investment facilitation, and capacity building, particularly for MSMEs, women, and young entrepreneurs, will ensure these opportunities convert into meaningful economic outcomes.

These developments are occurring alongside Afreximbank’s expanded US$5 billion commitment to the Caribbean and ongoing work to strengthen the financial, payment, transport and institutional infrastructure necessary to support deeper trade and investment between our Regions.

Africa-CARICOM Day therefore gives us an opportunity not only to celebrate where we have come from, but to consider what we are now building together.

Our shared history connects us, but it is our shared interests that will continue to give us reason to cooperate, while the institutions we build, the investments we make, the businesses we connect and the opportunities we convert into measurable outcomes will determine the strength of the Africa-CARICOM relationship for generations to come.

The CPSO remains committed to working with our partners across Africa and the Caribbean Community to translate the political ambition of Africa-CARICOM cooperation into expanded trade, stronger businesses, more resilient supply chains, investment and sustainable economic opportunities for our people. 

Happy Africa-CARICOM Day.

-END-

 

September 7, 2026

CPSO Welcomes OAS Private Sector Initiative of the Americas, Calls for CARICOM to Be Built In at the Design Stage

By CARICOM, news, Press Release, pressrelease, Tariffs, Trade, US-CARICOM TradeNo Comments

OAS Private Sector Initiative of the Americas
Statement on Behalf of the CARICOM Private Sector

Dr. Patrick Antoine | CEO and Technical Director, CARICOM Private Sector Organization
Thursday, 3 September 2026

Secretary General Ramdin, Chair Bulgheroni, Distinguished Colleagues,

In the Caribbean, we do not debate whether prosperity and peace are connected. We live it.

When a single hurricane can erase a year’s GDP overnight; when one disrupted shipping lane raises the price of food on every shelf in fifteen countries; when correspondent banks withdraw and the cost of simply moving money climbs; when our economies import what we could grow, ships bypass ports we could connect to, and pay energy costs designed for continents not islands, the distance between an economic shock and a social crisis is measured in weeks, not years.

Prosperity, for small states, is not the reward of stability. It is the condition for it.

That is why the CARICOM Private Sector Organization (CPSO) embraces this Initiative, and why we come to this table not with requests, but with work already in motion.

Six weeks ago, the CPSO stood before the Heads of Government of CARICOM and presented our Derisking CSME Imports methodology for unshackling trade potential: hard data mapping exactly where our Community is exposed to external supply shocks, and exactly how enabling intra-regional trade corridors can close those gaps.

Not a study for a shelf. Approaches to meeting the grinding challenge of affordability, tools being used now, and a model that could scale across this hemisphere, where intra-regional trade, as the Panama dialogue rightly diagnosed, remains far below its potential.

Our Heads of Government are advancing a Regional Ferry Service to finally stitch our islands together by sea. With development partners, we are addressing high maritime transport and trade costs, food security gaps, and non-tariff barriers that operate as a hidden tax on every
Caribbean household. And at the International Maritime Organization, the CPSO is collaborating with CARICOM Member States to ensure that global shipping’s energy transition does not arrive as a bill that small, fuel-importing economies cannot pay.

De-risking trade. Connectivity. A just energy transition. These are not aspirations. They are CARICOM’s answer, already underway, to the very question this Initiative poses.

So our submission is direct.

First: build CARICOM in at the design stage. Fifteen Member States. A single market. A private sector organised and ready. We are not a footnote to a Latin American conversation. We are a distinct constituency, with distinct exposure, and with solutions already tested at the level of our Heads of Government.

Second: as the 120-day Action Agenda takes shape, let it carry measurable commitments on the three fronts I have named, and let those commitments reach the micro, small and medium enterprises that make up the overwhelming majority of firms in our region. An Agenda that works for the most vulnerable economies, and the smallest firms, in this hemisphere will, by definition, work for all of them.

Third: use what exists. Give the private sector a standing seat in this Initiative, not an episodic one. And enable our sustained participation!

Our CPSO brings data, methodology, and a mandate from our Community. We are not asking this Initiative to invent the Caribbean’s priorities. We are offering to deliver them, together.

The Secretary General has said that prosperity is an investment in peace.

In the Caribbean, we would add only this: nowhere in the Americas will that investment yield a higher return.

Thank you.

September 5, 2026

Statement from the CARICOM Private Sector Organization (CPSO) on the capsizing of the MV Barima Ferry off Guyana’s Atlantic Coast

By news, Press Release, pressreleaseNo Comments
The CARICOM Private Sector Organization (CPSO) extends its deepest sympathies and heartfelt solidarity to the Government, Communities, and People of Guyana following the capsizing of the passenger ferry MV Barima of the coast of Guyana on Saturday 18th July.
 
We are grateful for those who have been accounted for to date, while holding in our thoughts the families anxiously awaiting news of their loved ones. We join in prayer for the swift and safe recovery of all those still unaccounted for, and we commend the tireless efforts of the Government of Guyana, Civil Defence Commission, Defence Force, Coast Guard, and the private vessels and citizens who answered the call to help in the search and rescue operation.
 
As a regional private sector body, the CPSO stands ready to support and assist in the days ahead. Our prayers remain with Guyana.
July 19, 2026

CARICOM Heads of Government and Regional Private Sector Agree Concrete Actions on Affordability at Second High-Level Breakfast Dialogue

By news, Press Release, pressrelease, Tariffs, TradeNo Comments

CASTRIES, Saint Lucia — July 9, 2026. The second High-Level Breakfast Dialogue between the OECS Business Council (OBC), the CARICOM Private Sector Organization (CPSO) and CARICOM Heads of Government was convened at Sandals Grande, Saint Lucia, under the theme “Meeting the Affordability Challenge: Toward a Proactive Agenda for Member States and the Private Sector” on July 6th 2026, in the margins of the 51st Regular Meeting of the Conference of Head of Government of the Caribbean Community.

The Dialogue brought together more than one hundred and twenty senior representatives of the CARICOM private sector with Heads of Government from eleven (13) Member States, the Caribbean Congress of Labour (CCL), development finance partners—including the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and the CARICOM Development Fund (CDF)—and other regional institutions.

Against the backdrop of rising cost-of-living pressures across the Community, participants examined practical measures to improve affordability by removing barriers to intra-regional trade, reducing transportation and logistics costs, diversifying imports, mobilising regional investment capital, strengthening tourism linkages, and addressing the disproportionate negative impacts (DNI) of the International Maritime Organization’s Net-Zero Framework (NZF) on CARICOM Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

The discussions reflected a strong consensus that regional governments, the private sector and organised labour must move beyond policy dialogue to coordinated implementation, supported by clearly defined mandates, timelines and measurable outcomes.

Key Outcomes and Takeaways

Regional Travel and Maritime Transport: Dominating the morning’s discussions was the urgent need to resolve the Region’s inadequate transport capacity, which continues to constrain the CSME commitment to the free movement of people and goods. The Session agreed on a September 2026 deadline for creation of the enabling regulatory framework for the mutual recognition of insurance, licences and road taxes, essential to finalising arrangements for the regional ferry service to be operated by the private sector. In the interim, Heads determined that an earlier pilot ferry initiative will be pursued, utilising a vessel the Government of Trinidad and Tobago has expressed its willingness to deploy to launch the service. The Session also registered satisfaction at the commencement of service by Executive Air Cargo, which has begun transporting agri-food products among Member States.

Non-Tariff Barriers: Turning to the barriers within the Region’s own control, the Session adopted a ‘pairwise’ model of direct engagement between the Member States implementing the fifty-seven (57) non-tariff barriers (NTBs) identified by the private sector as suppressing intra-regional trade, and the Member States affected by them. The model will be implemented under the leadership of a Lead Head of Government, with the active participation of the private sector and the relevant ministerial and regulatory institutions, and with implementing and affected States committing to time-bound remedial actions. 

Import diversification: The Breakfast Meeting benefitted from a presentation of technical work on reducing the cost and increasing the benefits, of diversifying and de-risking CARICOM’s imports. It noted that the Region stands to realise expected savings of circa USD 2.0 billion from the diversification of a component of its non-fuel imports alone and recognised the scope for still greater savings from reduced fuel imports as the Region transitions to renewables. The CPSO was urged to undertake further work on the fuel import-energy transition nexus, as a matter of immediate priority.

Short-Term Cost-of-Living Measures: The Session discussed short-term measures to ease the cost-of-living pressures bearing on CARICOM households. Prime Minister Mottley made an explicit call for a formal tripartite compact among Governments, the private sector and organised labour, covering a basket of essential products. She also called on the private sector to accept lower profits on essential goods to ease the cost of living for CARICOM citizens. The need for further discussions with the contribution of ideas from all quarters was recognized.

Mobilising regional savings: The Session then turned from costs to capital, endorsing the urgency of creating a bridge between the surplus liquidity held by regional financial institutions and strategic investment opportunities in areas such as desalination, battery storage, solar, wind and geothermal power generation, and port facilities. Recognising that the people of CARICOM remain largely unaware of these opportunities, the Session endorsed their publication on a common regional platform as a necessary first step. Investment opportunities in agriculture were singled out for listing on the platform, and a request was made for a compendium of CARICOM-wide agricultural investments to be presented at the next High-Level Breakfast Forum.

Tourism linkages: In the same spirit of building regional value chains, the Session renewed its support for completing the Tourism Linkages Project — mandated by the Forty-Eighth Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government — to strengthen the connections between tourism and regional agriculture, manufacturing and services.

Climate action and the IMO Net-Zero Framework: Closing the substantive agenda, the regional private sector reaffirmed its commitment to climate action, decarbonisation and the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as essential to the sustainable development of CARICOM Member States. At the same time, the Session expressed broad support for a cautious regional approach to implementation of the IMO Net-Zero Framework (which aims to impose penalties on shipping failing to convert fleets to net-zero carbon-emitting fuels), citing its disproportionate negative impacts on Small Island Developing States, consumers and the tourism industry—particularly the cruise sector. Participants also endorsed extending the CPSO’s import-diversification work to quantify the import savings and wider economic benefits associated with the transition to renewable energy, with an update to be presented to the next Meeting of the Council for Finance and Planning (COFAP).

Implementation: To carry the agenda forward, the Session agreed to establish Working Groups operating with predefined timelines and measurable deliverables, ensuring that the commitments arising from the Session are implemented and monitored for accountability. CPSO will work closely with the CSME Prime Ministerial Sub Committee to follow up on this structure.

Shared On-going Commitment: Shared Ongoing Commitment: The Session concluded with a shared determination that the Caribbean’s affordability challenge must be addressed through practical, time-bound and results-oriented action, and that the enduring partnership among governments, the private sector and organised labour will remain central to delivering meaningful benefits for the people of the Community. In closing, CPSO Chairman Gervase Warner thanked the Heads of Government and private sector representatives for their honest engagement and collaborative contributions, observing that the stage has been set for continuing collaboration among the private sector, Heads of Government and organised labour. He committed the CPSO to following up on delivery of the work programme identified during the Session.

— END —

Notes to Editors:

The CARICOM Private Sector Organization (CPSO) is an Associate Institution of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), representing the regional private sector in advancing the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).

The OECS Business Council (OBC) is the representative body of the private sector of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States.

The First High-Level Breakfast Dialogue was convened in July 2025 in the margins of the 49th Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

July 10, 2026
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