By: Staff Writer
July 10, 2026
Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley said at the closing ceremony of the 51st Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM that the community is working on reducing intra-island cargo costs.
Mottley said: “The major initiative that we want to be able to do is to reduce the cost of cargo for intra island trade, and it is against this backdrop that the long awaited ferry is something that we’re working on assiduously, but Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar has also agreed that pending the private sector arrangements, which may take as long as a year, because they have to source vessels while we do the regulatory work, hopefully between now and the next three months, that Trinidad and Tobago has had a history of using ferries between Trinidad and Tobago.”
The inter-island ferry service in Trinidad and Tobago is managed by the Trinidad and Tobago Inter-island Transportation Company (TTIT). The service primarily transports passengers, vehicles, and cargo between the Port of Spain Ferry Terminal in Trinidad and the Port of Scarborough in Tobago.
Mottley continued: “We are now about to enter discussions with Prime Minister (Godwin) Friday from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Prime Minister Persad-Bissesar, and myself as lead on CSME to see how best we can utilize one of the Trinidad vessels as a proof of concept while the private sector procures.
“And I’ve undertaken the responsibility of working with colleagues to be able to get the treaty arrangements for mutual recognition of licenses and insurance, so that cargo vehicles can literally go on and come off where possible.
“This is a work in progress, and it also involves the fact that some ports in the southern Caribbean- and this is the proof of concept- will first be in the southern and eastern Caribbean, but it requires us to also assess whatever infrastructural arrangements might be needed at the port, or whether ramps can be used.
“So I give you the assurance that we are singularly focused on being able to reduce the cost of intra island cargo, which, in addition to the other measures that we have taken to increase disposable income of our citizens, but also to reduce the cost of freight, the cost of gas, and the cost of electricity, all of which, when combined, can be completely inflationary, is what we’re doing together.”
High transportation costs and structural limitations historically make intra-regional trade within the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) expensive and underperforming. Addressing this directly, regional leaders are targeting high cargo freight rates by testing dedicated intra-island cargo ferry systems to lower the costs of moving goods between islands.