By Nneka Nwogwugwu
Kenya and Barbados on Wednesday evening signed three key bilateral agreements for cooperation in aviation, environmental conservation, trade and investment.
President Uhuru Kenyatta and Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley witnessed the signing of an air services agreement, an MoU on the development of the national botanical garden of Barbados, and another one on the establishment of a Joint Committee on Trade and Investment, in Bridgetown, Barbados.
Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Raychelle Omamo signed the three agreements on behalf of Kenya while Ministers Lisa Cummins (Tourism and International Transport), Dr Adrian Forde (Environment and National Beautification) and Dr Jerome Walcott (Foreign Affairs And Foreign Trade) represented Barbados.
Speaking at a high-level meeting that preceded a business forum between Kenyan business community representatives and their Barbadian counterparts on the second day of his official visit to the Caribbean island country, President Kenyatta expressed optimism that the agreements will strengthen bilateral ties between the two nations.
The President pointed out that Kenya and Barbados have steadily been working together to enhance cooperation between Africa and the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), citing the first Africa-CARICOM Summit held virtually on 7 September 2021 as part of those efforts.
“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 as quoted by Citizen Digital.