Stock Exchange Announced for the Caribbean Community at CARICOM meeting in The Bahamas

Sherrica Thompson

Staff Writer

#TheBahamas, March 2, 2023 – One of the big announcements coming out of the recent Closing of the 44th Regular Meeting of CARICOM Heads of Government is the coming of a Regional Stock Exchange; touted already as a key to providing greater economic empowerment and avenues for wealth creation for Caribbean people.

The revelation was made by the outgoing Chairman of CARICOM and the Prime Minister of the Bahamas, Phillip Davis, while he was responding to questions from the media.

“There is a move to set up a Caribbean stock exchange, and that will require some amendment to the document that governs the conduct in that market,” Davis said.

While acknowledging that it would take about 18 months to have the market up and running, Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Motley outlined why the region needs to have a stock exchange.

“At this very moment in time, rather than having separate stock exchanges, we need to have a strong regional capital market that will provide funding for our companies in order to be able to move to the next level and also to stave off the types of competitions that would otherwise be coming at them [Caribbean people] from outside the region.”

The Stock Market is one of the initiatives that CARICOM hopes to achieve from amendments to the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, which established the Caribbean

Single Market and Economy.  According to Prime Minister Motley, these changes would provide a regulatory framework for the market’s implementation.

“The Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, while a good treaty, does have some gaps, and it is intended to be able to allow us to have a policy framework for mergers and acquisitions. Countries are now reviewing it, and it will go to COTED [the Council for Trade and Economic Development], and after COTED, the settled agreement will then come here.

“In this type of environment, we expect more and more companies to be looking at the issue of merging or acquiring other companies, so we feel that we need a regulatory framework that is both enabling and protective,” Motley explained.

With the establishment of a regional stock exchange/market, CARICOM member states would be able to further their integration process.  The idea of a regional market first emerged in 1989 on the initiative of the Jamaican Government.