This archive report was first published on 8 October 2021.
On Wednesday, Kenya and Barbados signed three significant bilateral agreements to boost cooperation in key areas. The agreements were signed in Bridgetown, Barbados, during President Uhuru Kenyatta's official visit to the Caribbean island nation.
The agreements include an air services agreement, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the development of the national botanical garden of Barbados, and another MoU on the establishment of a Joint Committee on Trade and Investment.
Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Raychelle Omamo signed the agreements on behalf of Kenya, while Ministers Lisa Cummins, Dr. Adrian Forde, and Dr. Jerome Walcott represented Barbados.
President Kenyatta expressed optimism that the agreements will strengthen bilateral ties between the two nations, citing the first Africa-CARICOM Summit held virtually on September 7, 2021, as a significant step towards enhancing cooperation between Africa and the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM).
“Together, we started and spearheaded the need to have the very first ever African-CARICOM Summit that was supposed to be held on the sidelines of CHOGM last year. Unfortunately due to Covid, we were not able to do so. But again banking on the resilience of our two countries, we still managed this year to hold that first Africa-CARICOM Summit where we had participation of all our regional economic communities (RECs) of our continent together with leaders of CARICOM,” the President said.
President Kenyatta also emphasized the importance of deepening people-to-people interactions between the two countries, stating that it was the people who could turn the good relations between the two countries into profitable and meaningful relationships.
