Business View Caribbean | December 2019

5 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN DECEMBER 2019 OPENING L INES CARIBBEAN EXPORT PROMOTES THE CARIBBEAN’S ORANGE ECONOMY IN KENYA R aising the profile of the Caribbean’s orange economy (also known as the creative economy), exchanging best practices, innovation, and cultivating relations was the focus of the recently held mission of the Caribbean Export Development Agency to the 9th African Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) Summit of Heads of State and Government which took place from December 9-10, 2019 in Nairobi, Kenya. Caribbean Export staged a fashion showcase in collaboration with the ACP Secretariat where 80 designers from 20 countries of the Caribbean, the Pacific, and Africa presented under the patronage of the Honourable Mia Amor Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados. Prime Minister Mottley stressed the importance of initiatives such as this to the promotion and popularization of creatives in order to raise capital and investment, stating, “We hope that we can create the logistical framework that will allow the trading to take place so that we don’t only marvel at the beauty of the designs, but we can ensure that the economics that will support the sale of the designs can make the businesses sustainable. We now need to popularize it and we now need to ensure that access to working capital is always there for our artists, because most artists don’t have the collateral to go and access funding from the banks in order to be able to expand production.” In a separate interview, Mr. Anthony Bradshaw,