During the recently held 2026 Market Day With A Difference event, Dominica’s Department of Trade and the Dominica Import Export Agency (DEXIA) jointly unveiled a comprehensive national trade roadmap aimed at closing the country’s long-standing import-export gap, while shielding local households and businesses from the volatile shocks of global inflation and surging international fuel prices.
DEXIA Chairman Nicholson Esprit and Minister for Trade Vince Henderson took the stage at the weekend gathering to lay out the multi-pronged framework, which prioritizes two core pillars: drastically scaling up domestic food production to replace costly imports, and unlocking untapped regional export markets for Dominican agricultural goods.
A flagship component of the strategy targets the nation’s outsized annual poultry import bill, which currently tops $19 million. To accelerate the growth of a self-sufficient local poultry sector, the government has allocated $3.9 million to fully reconstruct the national abattoir, creating a streamlined end-to-end supply chain for local producers. Under the new collaborative model that unites the Ministry of Agriculture, independent smallholder farmers and DEXIA, poultry farmers can deliver their livestock directly to the upgraded abattoir and receive full payment within 48 hours, while DEXIA takes charge of all subsequent distribution to local supermarkets, hospitality venues and institutional buyers. Esprit emphasized that the long-term objective of this system is to reduce national spending on imported poultry to nearly zero within the coming years.
Beyond import substitution, DEXIA is actively pursuing new overseas market access following a recent official trade mission to Togo and Senegal, where West African stakeholders demonstrated strong, unmet demand for high-quality Dominican agricultural commodities. Esprit acknowledged that local producers will first need to meet strict benchmarks for product consistency, price competitiveness and reliable, on-time supply to formalize these trade partnerships. To remove these barriers, DEXIA will roll out structured contractual farming arrangements for local producers in 2027, and will coordinate bulk, affordable access to critical agricultural inputs including fertilizers, using a proven operational structure modeled after the historic Dominica Banana Marketing Corporation (DBMC) that once underpinned the island’s thriving banana export industry.
Trade Minister Henderson fully endorsed DEXIA’s action plan, noting that while short-term legislative adjustments can temporarily alleviate cost-of-living pressures, the only sustainable buffer against global economic turbulence and imported inflation is full-scale agricultural industrialization and a widespread shift toward local consumption among Dominican residents. He further called on DEXIA to expand support for the agro-processing and local culinary sectors to unlock greater value from domestic farm output, pointing to the highly diversified coconut processing industry he observed during a visit to China’s Hainan Island, where raw coconuts are transformed into a wide range of high-value products from plant-based milk to premium confectionery. Henderson added that the government is also advancing parallel initiatives to develop domestic cold storage infrastructure and formalize cross-border fish exports, which will create new, direct revenue streams for local vessel owners and small shipping operators.
DEXIA and Trade Ministry outline strategy to slash $19M poultry import bill and expand agricultural exports
