Saint Lucia issued a call for Caribbean nations to transform their economic future through sustainable trade and bioeconomy strategies that aligned climate action with innovation, value creation, and global competitiveness.

The two-day Crafting a Sustainable and Inclusive Trade and Bioeconomy Agenda for CARICOM workshop, held from 29–30 October at the Harbor Club, comprised five key thematic sessions focused on regional transformation through sustainable trade and bioeconomic development:

• Defining the nexus between trade, climate, and the Caribbean bioeconomy, emphasising the bioeconomy as a climate-resilient engine of growth.
• Innovation, digital trade, and AI, spotlighting technologies such as blockchain, AI, and digital certification systems to unlock access to premium global markets.
• Unlocking the ocean economy, exploring fisheries, marine biotechnology, and port modernisation to transform blue economy assets into global exports.
• Building resilient food systems, showcasing trade policy as a catalyst for climate-smart agriculture, regional food sovereignty, and export diversification.
• Financing the bioeconomy and green industrial policy, examining impact investment, circular economy strategies, and bio-based manufacturing.

  “Trade policy had to facilitate access to green technologies, promote regional value addition, and ensure that environmental goods and services moved freely across our borders. For small island states, sustainable trade was the pathway to survival and prosperity,” said Permanent Secretary Janelle Modeste-Stephen, speaking at the opening of the Crafting a Sustainable and Inclusive Trade and Bioeconomy Agenda for CARICOM workshop in Saint Lucia.
  The workshop was convened to shape a unified regional strategy for sustainable trade, climate resilience, and bioeconomic transformation.
  (Photo credits: Josiah St. Luce)

Speaking at the workshop, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, International Trade, Civil Aviation, and Diaspora Affairs, Janelle Modeste-Stephen, warned the region was at a historic turning point. She cautioned that Caribbean nations had to act decisively in the face of mounting threats.

“The Caribbean was confronted with overlapping global crises, such as climate change, rising protectionism, and the impact of trade wars.”

Modeste-Stephen stressed that climate change “continued to threaten our economies, our ecosystems, and our very way of life,” while global trade was being reshaped by “technological advancements, new sustainability standards, and certification systems” that would determine how nations “produced and competed in this global village.”

Photo credit: Josiah St. Luce

She referenced Saint Lucia’s recent leadership role in hosting a CARICOM subcommittee meeting chaired by Prime Minister Philip J Pierre, noting that the gathering “reaffirmed the urgency for small island developing states to speak with one clear voice in global negotiations.” This unity, she stressed, was no longer optional.

In addressing geopolitical developments, she described the recent International Maritime Organisation vote to delay the adoption of its net-zero carbon framework as “a sobering reminder of how complex and fragile multilateral climate action could be.” She urged Caribbean nations not to be passive in the face of such global setbacks. Instead, she emphasised, it “reinforced the need for the Caribbean region to act with unity, purpose, and creativity, to chart its own sustainable and inclusive trade and bioeconomy agenda.”

“This was precisely what today’s workshop embodied,” she continued, highlighting the importance of integrating trade, sustainability, and innovation as “powerful labours for building a more resilient and prosperous Caribbean.”

She further noted that trade and sustainability were no longer parallel tracks, “they were mutually reinforcing,” and that for smaller, island developing states, sustainable trade was not a luxury, it was the very pathway to survival and prosperity. She emphasised that governments had to ensure “that our trade policy supported our climate objectives, and that our climate diplomacy created the flexibility needed to drive green transformation at home… The Caribbean had to position itself to lead rather than follow.”