As early as next year, a trans-Caribbean marine network will be established. Connect Caribe, a regional ferry service, wants to establish St. Croix as a significant center in order to achieve this.
The vice chair of Connect Caribe, Raphael D’angelis, stated, “We start looking as one – the same way every successful country in the world looked at each other: instead of looking at the islands as separate elements of an organism.” Under the direction of the Virgin Islands and a few other areas, we are attempting to establish the United States of the Caribbean.
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Connect Caribe, which was financed by private venture capital, is a partnership between a number of local companies that specialize in logistics, information technology, tourism, and freight. Together, they intend to use their combined experience to realize a long-held goal of regional integration advocates: the establishment of a marine commerce route that would link the Caribbean’s islands.
Anthony Weeks, USVI’s Special Economic Envoy and Managing Director of SEDI-CASE, stated, “We’re building this network of passenger and cargo ferries that will connect all of the Caribbean coming from South America – Suriname up to the U.S. Virgin Islands.”
Together with representatives of local shipping and logistics companies, Connect Caribe and its connected companies and organizations, and Caribbean ambassadors, Governor Albert Bryan Jr. announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding. The goal of Connect Caribe is to build a significant hub on the island of St. Croix in order to initially offer more ferry connections for passengers and freight to and from St. Thomas, and then to other Caribbean Community (CARICOM) nations like Guyana and Suriname.
Governor Bryan stated, “Too long we have governed with our backs to the water. Today’s signing of this memorandum of understanding is just one more step forward in ensuring that we turn toward the water and take full advantage of the economic benefits that lie within our reach,” he remarked.
It would be understandable for locals to be excitedly awaiting the start of Connect Caribe’s boat service as they lack affordable travel choices for visiting their Caribbean neighbors. Although passenger traffic will undoubtedly be facilitated, the project’s architects have set their sights on a far more ambitious goal.
“The Caribbean people need to understand that the major focus of this system – it has always been food stability,” Mr. D’angelis emphasized.
He said that Connect Caribe differs from earlier unsuccessful inter-Caribbean ferry ventures that placed a higher priority on passenger travel between islands by emphasizing cargo. “I know that everybody loves festivals and moving people around, but our biggest concern from day one on the system is how can I get a producer from Barbados to send food to another island?”
The Connect Caribe regional marine network would be essential in enhancing food security and reducing food prices, which are “a great economic distress across the region,” Mr. Angelis said, citing the region’s annual food import bill of around $17 billion.
According to Mr. D’angelis, Connect Caribe is trying to make sure that prices are initially comparable to existing choices in order to promote commerce across the new maritime routes.
Mr. D’angelis explained, “We have talked to shipping companies and guaranteed them of a rate between countries as low as ground rate for standard express packages.”
He added, “So that will boost an e-commerce platform across the region in a $4 billion business estimated by CARICOM today.”
According to Governor Bryan, St. Croix is in a prime location to house the ferry service because it is the region’s center of industry and manufacturing.
He noted, “We have a refinery owner that really has a broad outlook on what we could do with the property, including refining. We have the South Shore Free Trade Zone economic policy piece that is in place.”
Governor Bryan added, “We have the Renaissance Group…and we’re working with them hand in glove to make sure that we facilitate in a way that promotes economic growth.”
With the refinery, three planned solar farms, and the Diageo power plant as well as St. Croix’s several deep water ports, Governor Bryan contended that the island is ready to entice back industries that left because of the high cost of energy. As Mr. Bryan explained, the Connect Caribe hub “is just another piece of putting together the future of St. Croix and essentially the future of the Virgin Islands. The real economic growth that’s left to be seen is on the Big Island.”
According to an article published in January, Connect Caribe would debut with three ships, having obtained an initial investment of USD 50 million from Upturn Funds, the advising firm that Mr. D’angelis co-founded, and planned to launch in limited quantities in the final quarter of 2024. The logistical complexities of such a large operation have resulted in slipping timelines, as Mr. D’angelis stated, “We are actually finalizing [a] study to see which is the first two routes that’s going to be more economically feasible.”
He noted, “I do expect the maritime project to be online, at least with the first boat, within the next few months.”
According to Mr. D’angelis, the project will be implemented in stages and is anticipated to demand an expenditure of up to $400 million during its initial five years. This is partly to allow for a slow shift of perspective among Caribbean industry and business executives. “All of a sudden, the economy in the Caribbean has to accustom [itself] to the idea that I can send my product from one island to the other at a very cheap rate,” he remarked.
Additionally, Mr. D’angelis mentioned that the process of choosing which vessels would be put into service is now in progress.
Mr. Weeks stated that “the anticipated launch is supposed to be the first quarter, or the end of the first quarter.”
The MOU between the Government of the Virgin Islands and Connect Caribe does not obligate GVI to a financial investment, Governor Bryan was keen to point out. “There’s no direct investment, but we did commit other resources, such as the South Shore Economic Trade Zone study, that determined whether or not shipbuilding would be viable. Those are the type of resources that we commit to, and we don’t do so formally.”
For his part, Mr. D’angelis said that the private sector is spearheading the service’s rollout. A significant obstacle, though, would be the often-oppressive bureaucracy that comes with a cross-jurisdictional project of this size and complexity. He urged people in the area to use their voices to put pressure on their governments to take action. “It is up to the people of the Caribbean to rise up and demand their government to respond as quickly as possible to a full integration into the system,” Mr. D’angelis stated.
“This is a time for people across the region to rise up and say ‘I want this. I want to pay less for food. I want to have economic opportunity,’” he added. “We bring the financing, but without people believing and fighting for it, you know how it is.”
After the signing ceremony on October 23, 2024, there will be networking events and an investor tour of the South Shore Economic Trade Zone in the days that follow.
