Re­pub­lic Bank is col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Caribbean Ex­port De­vel­op­ment Agency (Caribbean Ex­port) on a ca­pac­i­ty-build­ing ini­tia­tive to po­si­tion small busi­ness­es for ex­pand­ed suc­cess.

The ini­tia­tive, which is be­ing co-fund­ed by the Eu­ro­pean Union through the third Re­gion­al Pri­vate Sec­tor De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme, is in­tend­ed to as­sist small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es (SMEs) in ac­cess­ing fi­nance and ex­port op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“By in­vest­ing in SMEs, this ini­tia­tive is cre­at­ing a rip­ple ef­fect where stronger busi­ness­es lead to stronger com­mu­ni­ties and economies. With the right sup­port, these en­ter­pris­es can fu­el in­no­va­tion, cre­ate jobs, and po­si­tion them­selves as key play­ers in the re­gion­al and glob­al mar­ket­place,” said a joint news re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day.

The Re­pub­lic Bank–Caribbean Ex­port “Thrive: Un­lock­ing Fi­nance and Ex­port Po­ten­tial for SMEs” pro­gramme, is a vir­tu­al fi­nance and ex­port de­vel­op­ment train­ing ini­tia­tive that will be­gin next month, and aims to ben­e­fit an es­ti­mat­ed 500 SMEs across An­guil­la, Bar­ba­dos, the British Vir­gin Is­lands, the Cay­man Is­lands, Do­mini­ca, Ghana, Grena­da, Guyana, St Kitts-Nevis, St Lu­cia, St Maarten, St Vin­cent and The Grenadines, Suri­name, and T&T.

It will pro­vide these SMEs with ac­cess to rel­e­vant and dy­nam­ic ex­pert train­ing de­signed to help them scale, in­no­vate, and com­pete glob­al­ly. Through on­line learn­ing, live group ses­sions, and in­valu­able net­work­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties, the pro­gramme fo­cus­es on build­ing re­silience, im­prov­ing fi­nan­cial lit­er­a­cy, and un­lock­ing new mar­ket po­ten­tial—key in­gre­di­ents for sus­tain­able busi­ness growth.

The pro­gramme will be im­ple­ment­ed in two phas­es. In the first phase, Busi­ness Ca­pac­i­ty Build­ing 1.0, up to 500 en­tre­pre­neurs will re­ceive ex­pert train­ing to en­hance their fi­nan­cial and ex­port readi­ness.

From this group, the top 50 par­tic­i­pants will ad­vance to the sec­ond phase, ti­tled “Ac­cess 2 Fi­nance Ac­cel­er­a­tor,” a ful­ly fund­ed, six month in­ten­sive train­ing pro­gramme.

While the val­ue of Phase One train­ing is US$156 per par­tic­i­pant, a nom­i­nal com­mit­ment fee of US$60 will be charged. This fee will be ful­ly re­fund­ed up­on suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of Busi­ness Ca­pac­i­ty Build­ing 1.0.

“We recog­nise the in­cred­i­ble po­ten­tial of SMEs and the bar­ri­ers they face in ac­cess­ing fi­nance and ex­pand­ing in­to new mar­kets. Through this ini­tia­tive, we are com­mit­ted to bridg­ing that gap, pro­vid­ing the knowl­edge and re­sources nec­es­sary for busi­ness­es to not just sur­vive, but thrive,” said Nigel Bap­tiste, group pres­i­dent and CEO of Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Ltd (RFHL). (CMC)

The ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of Caribbean Ex­port, Dr Damie Sinanan, em­pha­sised the pro­gramme’s role in strength­en­ing busi­ness com­pet­i­tive­ness.

“Through Thrive, we are not just of­fer­ing train­ing, we are equip­ping busi­ness­es with the fi­nan­cial acu­men, mar­ket in­tel­li­gence, and strate­gic net­works need­ed to scale and suc­ceed. “By ad­dress­ing key bar­ri­ers to growth, this ini­tia­tive strength­ens our re­gion’s pri­vate sec­tor and po­si­tions Caribbean en­tre­pre­neurs to take full ad­van­tage of in­ter­na­tion­al trade op­por­tu­ni­ties. This col­lab­o­ra­tion is a sig­nif­i­cant step to­ward dri­ving sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion across the Caribbean and be­yond,” Sinanan said.