Business
The Political/Economic Section in the Embassy of the United States to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean facilitates commercial outreach and services for U.S. businesses and local businesses hoping to work with a U.S. partner. We cooperate closely with the Foreign Commercial Service’s Caribbean office in Santo Domingo; the U.S. Caribbean Agricultural Trade Office in Miami and the Office of Commercial and Business Affairs in the State Department to support U.S. business and the trade partnership between the United States and Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean.
Why Do Business in the Eastern Caribbean?
- Close Proximity: The countries of the Eastern Caribbean are natural commercial partners of the United States, tied closely together by geography, history and culture.
- Eastern Caribbean – One of the United States’ Largest Trading Partners: The Eastern Caribbean, as part of the wider Caribbean Region, represents a market of about 41 million people who collectively imported over $40 billion in U.S. goods in 2010.
- Cooperative Trade Relationship: The Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) launched in 1983 and renewed in 2000 through legislation enacted by Congress established trade programs to facilitate the economic development and export diversification of the Caribbean Basin economies. U.S. exports to the CBI countries increased dramatically since the CBI’s creation, from $6.5 billion in 1984 to around $40 billion in 2010.
- Language and Education: In the Eastern Caribbean, you will find English-speaking partners with high educational standards.
- Regional Integration: The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is an organization of Caribbean nations and dependencies working to promote economic integration, stability and cooperation among its members. The CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSM) treaty signed on January 1, 2006 by 12 member countries, establishes deeper regional integration through harmonized tariffs and duty free trade. Within the Eastern Caribbean, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS ) further integrates and coordinates the sub-region, working together on monetary and trade policy, providing a unified system of banking and law that makes work throughout the region easier.