Bridgetown, Barbados – October 27, 2026: Regional trade and investment promotion body Caribbean Export Development Agency has formally announced the Dominican Republic as the host nation for the 6th edition of the Caribbean Investment Forum (CIF) in 2027, in a collaborative partnership with the country’s national export and investment promotion agency ProDominicana. This strategic alliance builds directly on the unprecedented success of the 2025 Barbados-hosted CIF, which generated over 500 verified business and investment linkages across the regional and global investor ecosystem.
The core mandate of the 2027 partnership is to forge deeper, more structured connections between CARIFORUM-based enterprises (encompassing all CARICOM member states plus the Dominican Republic), regional industry stakeholders, and cross-border investors. Unlike earlier iterations that prioritized project promotion and networking, the 2027 forum will center on advancing high-potential Caribbean investment opportunities past the preliminary planning and marketing stages to secure actionable financing and support scalable business growth.
Dr. Damie Sinanan, Executive Director of Caribbean Export, emphasized that staging the 2027 CIF in the Dominican Republic unlocks a pivotal gateway to elevate regional investment partnerships and raise the profile of Caribbean high-impact projects among global capital pools. “We are not just planning a one-off convening event in Santo Domingo; our joint work with ProDominicana and the broader Dominican government in the months leading up to the forum will ensure we deliver more robust, investment-ready projects, sustained meaningful engagement with global investors, and tangible progress toward closing actual funding deals, building directly on the connections forged at the 2026 Barbados event,” Sinanan stated.
The collaborative framework draws from the Dominican Republic’s proven track record in attracting foreign direct investment, which ProDominicana Executive Director Vladimir Pimentel shared as a featured speaker during the 2026 CIF. Pimentel’s presentation on the policy frameworks, institutional support structures, and business-friendly regulatory conditions that have driven the Dominican Republic’s FDI growth was widely cited as a key highlight of the 2026 forum’s knowledge-sharing agenda.
Pimentel noted that the 2027 CIF will allow the Dominican Republic’s national investment promotion efforts to align with the broader regional Caribbean economic agenda, creating a unified platform to showcase local Dominican innovation and enterprise, exchange best practices across CARIFORUM markets, and strengthen cross-border business community ties. “This forum will catalyze targeted investment that expands regional productive capacity, generates quality local employment, and elevates the Caribbean’s collective competitiveness in both regional and global value chains,” Pimentel added.
The 2026 Barbados edition of CIF, co-hosted by Caribbean Export, the Government of Barbados and the European Union, far outperformed participation targets: it drew 550 in-person registrations from 29 distinct nations, with an additional 3,900 virtual attendees tuning into the opening plenary session. The event’s dedicated Capital Connections matchmaking platform facilitated over 300 formally registered business-to-business meetings, supplemented by an estimated 200 additional private sessions between project owners and accredited investors, totaling more than 500 verified investment linkages that are now moving through due diligence and partnership negotiation phases. The 2026 forum also showcased $39 million worth of fully bankable, investment-ready projects, developed in partnership with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and presented to investors through exclusive, dedicated Deal Room sessions. The full 2026 program also included targeted panel discussions on regional investment climate trends, global capital flow patterns, investor decision-making frameworks, support structures for women-led enterprises, and actionable pathways to scale Caribbean small and medium-sized businesses.
Launched in Trinidad and Tobago in 2022, the annual CIF has previously been hosted in The Bahamas, Guyana, Jamaica, and Barbados, with the 2025 Jamaica edition drawing 455 registered participants. Over its four-year history, the forum has helped curate a regional pipeline of roughly 30 high-priority projects across 11 CARIFORUM countries, representing more than $170 million in aggregated investment opportunities, as documented by the Caribbean Development Bank during the 2026 event. Caribbean Export is now implementing a year-round operational model in partnership with the Caribbean Development Bank, encompassing continuous investor outreach, targeted investment readiness training for project proponents, ongoing matchmaking support, structured post-event follow-up, and centralized project pipeline management to convert these documented opportunities into closed financing deals and long-term strategic partnerships. In the months ahead of 2027, Caribbean Export will continue tracking all emerging partnerships, formal commitments, and pending investment deals generated from the 2026 Barbados forum, recognizing that full project evaluation, due diligence, and final financing approvals typically extend well beyond the timeline of a single in-person conference. Full details on official dates, venue locations, program agendas, and participation eligibility for CIF 2027 will be released to stakeholders and the public in subsequent formal announcements.