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Demand for U.S. consumer-oriented products in the Caribbean region reached $1.5 billion in 2022, a 26 percent gain compared to the previous year.

Over a dozen Caribbean countries are Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. With an aim toward meeting their obligations under this agreement, many have been working toward establishing their National Biosafety Frameworks for many years.

Sales in the Caribbean Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional (HRI) food service sector increased by 11 percent in 2022.

Sales in the Caribbean retail grocery sector decreased by 1.7 percent in 2022, primarily as the result of closing retail outlets in the French West Indies.

The Caribbean’s rebound from the economic downturn induced by the COVID-19 pandemic has been slow. Anxious for better times, the region is looking ahead at 2023 and hoping for improved tourist arrivals that will spark a return to more robust economic growth.

With international funding to develop and implement biosafety regulatory systems drying up in 2019, Caribbean biosafety regulatory efforts remain in idle mode. The region is seeking further funding from the United Nations Environmental Program/Global...

The resumption of travel amid a waning COVID-19 pandemic is breathing much-needed fresh air into the Caribbean Hotel Restaurant Institutional (HRI) food service sector. Yet in 2021 sector sales still fell short of pre-pandemic levels.

The Caribbean retail grocery sector continued on the upswing in 2021. The region increased its imports of consumer-oriented agricultural products by 14 percent in 2021, reaching an estimated $2.45 billion. The outlook calls for moderate growth as the region continues on the path to recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and markets such as Guyana and Turks and Caicos Islands emerge as larger players in the regional context.

Hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic (both in terms of public health and economic performance), the tourism-dependent Caribbean is anxiously awaiting a return to more normal times characterized by growing tourist arrivals, which in many ways are the economic lifeblood of the region.

Biosafety regulatory efforts in the Caribbean remain stalled, and it is yet to be seen whether countries can regain the will and secure the international financing required to fully implement their National Biosafety Frameworks in a harmonized manner.

Eager to put the COVID-19 pandemic behind it, the Caribbean is doing all it can to attract visitors and kick-start its tourism sector in 2021.

Caribbean imports of consumer-oriented products shrunk from $2.3 billion in 2019 to $2.1 billion in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, yet Caribbean retail grocery sales grew by an estimated 6 percent during the same period.