Trade Facilitation Summit brings Regional and African businesses together

“Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to share a few words with you as we get this Trade Facilitation Summit underway.

I would like to start by saying a very special welcome to the delegates who have joined us today representing a wide range of industries from around the Caribbean including Guyana and Suriname and from Ghana.

We hosted our first Trade Facilitation Summit in Guyana in 2016 with more than 220 attendees from Trinidad, Barbados, Suriname and Guyana, representing a wide cross section of industries.

After the overwhelmingly positive feedback that we received we hosted another in Ghana last year, with equally positive results. Now here we are, in Trinidad, and I know that I speak on behalf of the entire Republic Group when I say that I am looking forward to seeing where the next two days will take us and what the business generation outcomes of this year’s Summit will be.

When we first envisioned these meetings, we did it with the understanding that, as a regional organisation, we are in a special position to build linkages between our customers in the territories in which we operate.

We were excited then and we are excited now, because we saw these meetings as an opportunity to work with our customers to realize their full development potential by leveraging the strengths that all players bring to the table and to recognise the possibilities for unlocking a synergy not just here in the Caribbean and not just in Ghana, but on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Republic Group is no stranger to building linkages in the territories in which we operate. Our human resource is our greatest asset. Our talent pool is large and diverse and on any day across out network you can find a Republic Ghana team member training in Trinidad, or a Republic Trinidad team member providing relief in Barbados or Guyana. In fact, one of our uniquite strengths is the ability to bring together that network. Our new Managing Director for Suriname, Sean Hussain is a Guyanese national who had worked in Barbados for the past 13 years. Our Managing Director in Barbados is a Trinidadian who had previously worked in Grenada for 4 years. So we are not strangers to the “cross border trade”.

It is this diversity and interconnectedness at Republic that allows us to serve you, our customers better by unlocking the synergies and opportunities for collaboration across our territories. I know there are companies represented here today seeking a distributor in Suriname, a Joint Venture partner in Ghana, looking for a Caribbean seller of various raw materials, and it is those connections we are seeking to facilitate.

Relationships are developed at all levels, whether they bear fruit today or in the years to come, the partnerships and relationships that we cultivate at this event will undoubtedly serve to strengthen our businesses, and by extension our economies.

No one will ever understand our challenges and our potential the way we do and that is why we are stronger when we work together and when we empower each other. By coming together, as we have today, and by generating greater cooperation and South-South trade, we are building our own resilience and setting the stage for us to command a larger presence here in the Caribbean, in Africa and beyond.

This is the kind of bold, solution-driven thinking that we hope to inspire over the next two days. This is the level of development that we envision for our customers.

And this is why this Trade Mission is so critical. Because it sets the framework where we can not only form strategic partnerships amongst the corporate entities operating in Ghana and in the Caribbean region but also develop the kind of thinking that will allow us to look at what could be perceived to be a limitation to our growth and figure out how to turn it on its head and make it work for us instead.

Caricom’s total population is approximately 17 million people of which, about 11 million represents Haiti. Ghana’s population of over 28 million presents tremendous market mass for Caribbean companies seeking to expand capacity. I’m sure tomorrow we will hear more about the incentives and attractiveness of Ghana as a hub to West Africa and the continent generally, but permit me to highlight a few facts about Ghana. Macro-economically, they have had some set-backs, but significant progress has been made in managing the fiscal gap, reducing inflation, stabilizing the currency and dealing with the public debt. In terms of economic management some of our Caribbean counterparts can do well to take a page out of Ghana’s book.

In addition to the economic rationale, we can add that Ghana has a well-established stable political democracy with English as the official language and a legal framework which is very similar to what we are accustomed to in the Caribbean. (Of course there are cultural nuances that we must be mindful of).

In Ghana, Republic has found a welcoming community. With every visit we are imbued with the sense that we are not only on the right path, but that we are charting it with the right partners. That market offers huge potential for any business to grow, being a huge market for products and services or a source of raw materials or a combination of both.

Republic Bank’s belief in this type of cross-country, multi-lateral approach to doing business is resolute and we have begun exploring the creation of a Portal on our website. This Portal will be created to facilitate commercial interests between the countries in which Republic has a presence, bringing the network even closer together. It is our aim to not only continue the momentum we have from this and previous Trade Summits, but to build infrastructure around it to assist you, our customers in conducting business more smoothly and easily across various countries.

In this way we leverage the Banking Group’s capacity for very large transactions as well as very small trade finance facilities.

Republic Bank’s product offering of Loans, Bonds, Project Financing and a full suite of Trade Financing products is enhanced by a Capital Markets Syndication team capable of raising private capital and public debt.

It is our hope that by the conclusion of this Trade Summit you will all leave with a better sense of how you can augment your businesses to the level where they too can further compete and lead in your domestic marketplaces while at the same time developing opportunities for business expansion abroad.

So, we are here today to make the most out of what we have because making the most of opportunities is at the heart of the Republic Group.

In many ways what we will do here today and tomorrow is a natural progression of the work we started 181 years ago. Over that time we have grown from strength to strength; increasing both our reach and profitability, all the while consolidating our bases of operations to best serve our clients.

We stand with a Group asset base of over US$10 billion, with a net profit after tax of US$197 million (for our financial year 2017). We currently employ more than 5,484 staff in Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Guyana, the Cayman Islands, Cuba, Barbados, Suriname, and Ghana.

This is who we are today. But it took time getting there. Our first international expansion took place in 1992 in Grenada. The Republic Group’s balance asset base then was less than US$1 billion. From there, we continued to grow, to develop; always on the lookout for new opportunities and new markets to serve.

It took considerable time, resources, and effort. But most of all, it took partnership – which is exactly what we have to offer.

Now that we operate in 6 jurisdictions around the World, we believe that there is tremendous benefit in introducing local and regional business leaders to each other so that they can develop the networks and alliances to create future business opportunities for each other.

We intend to leverage our strengths, working with diverse communities in the interest of building and developing successful societies across every market we serve.

We at Republic Bank proudly bring to bear a record that is driven and defined by generating positive results, a strong balance sheet, leading risk management frameworks, and a diverse range of first-in-class banking solutions.

Combined with our knowledge and a shared commitment to the pursuit of sustainable development, our objective is to use this Trade Summit as a means of strengthening relationships, carving out niches for success, and above all, creating opportunities for our clients to further enhance and expand their businesses.

Through earnest discussion and sharing of ideas and experiences, we are better positioned to understand the markets in which we operate and are therefore able to suggest, if not identify opportunities for increased trade and investment.

This is one of our key objectives; engaging with one another to generate more business and sustainable income growth. We are honoured and heartened that you have taken us up on the opportunity to be a proactive part of it.

On behalf of the Republic Group, I thank you all for accepting our invitation to be a part of this journey, and I leave you with our best wishes for a successful and memorable event.”