Cayman products sought for craft show

Veona Maloney Deputy Manager of Information
Products and Services for Caribbean Export, and Philip
Swenerton, Head of Corporate Banking at FICB, the
major sponsor of the Caribbean Gift & Craft Show

Thursday, August 12, 2004

The Caribbean Gift and Craft show is now in its eleventh year and the 2004 exhibition will be held in Bridgetown, Barbados from 7-10 October.

Although the exhibition is a showcase for products, from all over the Caribbean, no Caymanian exhibitors have ever attended the show with locally produced goods from these islands.

At a conference held at the First International Caribbean Bank in George Town to promote the exhibition here in the Cayman Islands, Veona Maloney, of the Caribbean Export Development Agency, the promoters of the show said: “No exhibitors from The Cayman islands have ever attended a Caribbean Gift & Craft Show and we are really keen to encourage someone to come and show off Caymanian products.”

The First Caribbean International Bank are sponsors of the exhibition and will commit US $150,000 over the next three years.

Philip Swenerton, Head of Corporate Banking said: “We would encourage any local artisans and producers who would like to attend the conference to contact us and speak with our small business team about financial support.”

The bank is willing to make loans to producers who could benefit from the show in terms of export.

The show is designed to promote authentic Caribbean, gifts, arts, crafts, jewellery and fashions which have been produced in the region in a bid to promote trade and increase exports for the countries in the Caribbean area.

The show has been the catalyst for a number of producers around the region to begin successfully exporting to the US, Europe and Asia.

Booths cost US $625 and tabletops are available for US $400.

Veona Maloney added: “We have a special promotional area at the entrance of the exhibition where we promote first time products at the show, so anyone from the Cayman Islands who attends the exhibition with local authentic products will be getting extra promotion.”

Whilst many buyers from the Cayman Islands have traditionally attended the show and sourced regional products for shops here on the Cayman Islands, the lack of local artisans, crafts people, and designers attending and exhibiting our national products is almost certainly a missed opportunity for the islands as a whole.

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