From Trinidad to Grenada to Jamaica: A Summer 2025 Review of Caribbean Competitiveness, Innovation and Partnerships
- Zahra Henry
- Sep 9
- 5 min read
Updated: Sep 10
This summer marked a significant personal milestone: my ten-year work anniversary – a decade of living out ZLH Careers’ mission to develop talent, unlock opportunity, and build bridges across the globe. As I reflect on the journey, I am reminded of what it means to be rooted in Jamaica, connected to the Caribbean, and engaged with the world. Those three layers of identity – local, regional, and global – are not just who I am; they lie at the core of how we do business at ZLH Careers.
July brought this into sharp focus. Over the course of three major conferences, the Trade and Investment Convention (TIC) in Trinidad, the Caribbean Investment Forum (CIF) in Jamaica, and the Africa–Caribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF) in Grenada, the Caribbean was not only in conversation with itself, but with the wider world. These events were more than meetings, they were signposts pointing to the future of our region, and invitations to imagine what comes next.
Trade and Investment Convention (TIC): Competing and Collaborating on a Global Stage
The TIC, organised by the Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers’ Association, has long been a space where exporters, investors, policymakers, and entrepreneurs gather. This year, the energy felt different. It wasn’t simply about products on display, but about an ecosystem taking itself seriously as a competitor on the global stage.
Walking the floor, what struck us was how services were beginning to command as much attention as goods. For many years, Caribbean competitiveness was framed narrowly around commodities or tourism. But now, business support services, IT solutions, creative industries, and professional offerings are emerging as real export potential.
This is something we’ve seen firsthand. Earlier this year, we served as a judge in the Services category at Expo Jamaica, hosted by the Jamaica Manufacturers and Exporters Association, and with over 70 exhibitors, it was the largest category by far. That alone was a powerful reminder that services are no longer a side note, but a centerpiece. At TIC, this truth echoed across the conversations and the matchmaking sessions, a subtle but significant shift in how Caribbean economies are positioning themselves.
It left us with a question: what would it mean if the Caribbean embraced services as confidently as it once embraced sugar, bauxite, or tourism? Could our people become our greatest export, not through migration, but through the knowledge, creativity, and innovation we share with the world?
Caribbean Investment Forum (CIF): Innovation and Sustainability in Action
From Trinidad to Jamaica, the Caribbean Investment Forum, hosted by the Caribbean Export Development Agency, took the baton. If TIC was about showing competitiveness, CIF was about showing transformation.
Here, the themes were clear: digital innovation, transport and logistics, the green economy transition, food security, and sustainability. But what stood out was not the buzzwords, but the substance.
Panels on digital innovation dug into how fintech, e-commerce, and digital platforms can open access for MSMEs. Discussions on the green economy did not only highlight risks from climate change, but also opportunities, from renewable energy investment to circular economy solutions. On food security, farmers and agribusiness leaders spoke frankly about supply chain disruptions, climate resilience, and the pressing need for regional integration in agriculture.
One highlight was how deliberately the organisers placed private sector voices alongside governments and international partners. The message was clear: solutions will not come from policy alone, nor from the private sector alone, but from collaboration.
At ZLH, we found ourselves reflecting on the practical implications. After much dialogue around innovation, are we as a region ready to invest in the infrastructure, financing models, and capacity-building required to scale? Can we ensure that sustainability is not just a slogan, but a real lever of competitiveness? And how do we prepare MSMEs, who make up the majority of our economies, to step into these futures confidently?
Africa–Caribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF): A New Frontier in South–South Cooperation
By the time July closed in Grenada with ACTIF, hosted by Afreximbank and the Government of Grenada, the conversation had expanded beyond the region. ACTIF was about bold imagination, the kind that shifts paradigms.
The themes were ambitious: creating Africa–Caribbean air and sea links, investing in infrastructure, mobilising diaspora capital, and creating markets from culture, sports, and innovation. But perhaps what was most striking was how tangible the discussions felt.
Infrastructure and logistics were not spoken of in abstract terms, but as practical steps to unlock trade. Culture and sport were not simply celebrated, but examined as industries with business models. Diaspora engagement was not a sentimental call, but a strategy to channel resources, networks, and influence.
The reception by the Nigerian community in Grenada underscored that this isn’t just about statecraft, it is about people. It is about recognising that the ties of history can become the highways of future cooperation.
Here we asked ourselves: are we, as Caribbean stakeholders, prepared to think beyond the traditional North–South paradigm, and truly embrace South–South partnerships as central to our growth? What new opportunities might emerge if we saw Africa not as distant kin, but as immediate partners?
Lessons Across Three Stages: Local, Regional, Global
Looking back, the sequence of these conferences told a story. TIC reminded us that local competitiveness matters. CIF demonstrated that regional sustainability and innovation are urgent. ACTIF showed that global, South–
South cooperation is possible and necessary.
Across all three, what they shared was a commitment to more than dialogue. They all built in space for business meetings, workshops, pitches, and networking, making sure ideas could translate into action. They also featured a wide array of speakers, from government ministers to CEOs, from MSMEs to international financiers, from creatives to policy thinkers. That diversity was itself a message: the future of Caribbean business will be written by many hands.
Reflections
These moments underscored for us the essence of what we do at ZLH Careers. Our work lives at the crossroads of culture, commerce, and social impact, informed by a background that bridges research and practice, development cooperation and social policy, private sector strategy and international business.
That position allows us to reimagine how stakeholders connect and collaborate, so the Caribbean is not just part of the global economy, but shaping its place in it on our own terms.
But these conferences also left us with questions we believe are worth asking together:
Are we bold enough to position Caribbean services as a global export?
How do we ensure that innovation and sustainability become more than buzzwords, but lived strategies?
Are we ready to embrace Africa and the wider Global South, not as distant partners, but as central to our future?
These are not questions with easy answers, but they are the kind of questions that push us forward.
Looking Ahead
The Caribbean is at a crossroads, but also at a launchpad. We are not small, we are strategic. We are not peripheral, we are pivotal. What we do with that positioning will depend on how willing we are to collaborate, innovate, and expand our horizons.
At ZLH Careers, our role is to support that expansion, working with MSMEs, NGOs, and international development agencies to design, manage, and grow initiatives that matter. But more than that, we see ourselves as partners in reimagining what Caribbean business can mean to the world.
If your organisation, or you as a professional, are looking to widen your horizons and explore new partnerships, then let’s connect. We would be glad to have a conversation about how to turn that vision into reality.