President Lazarus Chakwera has described as long overdue the relationship between Africa and the Caribbean states.

Chakwera made the remarks   at the 1st ever Africa CARICOM summit which was held virtually on September 7,2021 in his capacity as Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) .

In his speech Chakwera said the summit is an opportunity to build relationships between and the Caribbean states in order to strengthen trade ties among others.

“We seek to build already existing engagements between some SADC member states and Caribbean member states to increase investment, collaboration, trade learning and exchange between the two regions,” he said.

“We therefore embrace and celebrate this 1st Africa CARICOM summit as another milestone towards the creation of a grand coalition of like-minded and like mannered nations.”

“Beyond embracing and celebrating it we fully intend to leverage the opportunities for partnership that it avails for the meaningful improvement of the lives of our citizens.”

During the meeting Chakwera also made it clear that SADC is neither small nor helpless because it’s strength lies in numbers and unity.