After months of collaborative work, targeted training, and regional consultations, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Commission has formally completed a landmark regional development initiative designed to help Eastern Caribbean nations unlock the full economic potential of trade in services to drive long-term growth and resilience.
Trade in services, a critical but often underleveraged economic segment for small island developing states, tracks the cross-border exchange of service-based output ranging from transportation, hospitality and tourism to financial consulting, information technology support, and telecommunications. For many small open economies in the Caribbean, this sector holds untapped potential to diversify revenue streams, reduce reliance on traditional commodity exports, and create inclusive local jobs.
The project was implemented in partnership with two United Nations agencies, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), as a core component of the broader regional program: “Strengthening Capacity for Evidence-Based Policymaking and Economic Resilience in CARICOM.”
According to an official statement released by the OECS, the primary barrier the initiative set out to address was a widespread lack of accurate, granular, and up-to-date data on services trade across participating member nations. These long-standing data gaps, the OECS explained, have prevented governments from fully expanding the services sector as a engine of economic diversification, leaving many countries overexposed to external economic shocks.
A key outcome of the project is the rollout of UNCTAD’s Trade in Services Information System, known as TiSSTAT, a digital tool that equips national statistical agencies with the infrastructure to generate, compile, and analyze robust services trade statistics. With this new system in place, governments can now design more targeted, data-backed export strategies and strengthen their integration into global value chains, opening new opportunities for local service providers to access international markets.
Beyond technical infrastructure for data collection, the project also delivered customized policy support to participating nations. This included comprehensive regional analysis of cross-cutting services trade trends, as well as tailored policy guidance aligned with each country’s unique economic priorities and structural challenges.
Between March 11 and April 29 of 2026, in-person and regional training workshops were hosted across all beneficiary OECS member states, followed by a series of regional validation meetings in July to review initial findings. The initiative brought together a diverse range of stakeholders, including senior trade policymakers, technical officials from national trade ministries and central statistical offices, and representatives from the region’s private sector to ensure outcomes aligned with both public policy goals and private industry needs.
Workshop discussions centered on several high-priority topics relevant to the region’s evolving economy. One key theme was the accelerating “servicification” of global manufacturing, a trend where information and communications technology (ICT) and other business services are increasingly integrated to add value to manufactured goods throughout the production, sales, and export process. Participants explored how Eastern Caribbean nations can capitalize on this trend to boost their own manufacturing competitiveness.
Another focus area was the region’s fast-growing Cultural and Creative Ecosystem (CCE), with stakeholders examining persistent bottlenecks in informal and underdocumented creative value chains. Discussions centered on developing better systems to track intellectual property assets and expand commercialization opportunities for creative entrepreneurs in the digital economy. The initiative also prioritized inclusive economic growth, with TiSSTAT’s granular data functionality allowing countries to disaggregate trade statistics to more accurately measure and track the participation of women and young people in service-based economic activity, enabling more inclusive policy design.
The initiative concluded with the formal endorsement of four country-specific strategic reports under the overarching title “How ICT and Business Services Can Support the Development of Creative Services and the Creative Economy in the Eastern Caribbean Economic Union.” The validated research findings from the project will serve as a critical evidence base to guide future trade policy reforms and advance inclusive, sustainable economic development across the region, OECS officials confirmed.
Seven OECS Protocol Member States ultimately benefited from the project: Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.