CE 2025 Annual Results Report web

FACILITATING ACCESS TO FINANCE

EMPOWERING BUSINESSES THROUGH CO-FINANCING FOR A GREEN, SMART, AND CONNECTED FUTURE – BRIDGE 2025

The 2025 call demonstrated strong regional demand. BRIDGE received 228 applications across its two windows, 125 under Green Transition and 103 under Digital Transformation, signalling that Caribbean enterprises are ready to co invest in resilience, sustainability, and productivity improvements. Importantly, the programme’s requirement that beneficiaries contribute at least 40% of total project costs did not deter participation, despite economic pressures and climate-related disruptions. Instead, the response reflected a strong appetite for structured support that helps unlock transformation in a financing-constrained environment. Adaptive management during Hurricane Melissa further underscored BRIDGE’s resilience focus. As the hurricane affected several CARIFORUM states including Jamaica, Haiti, The Bahamas, and the Dominican Republic, Caribbean Export extended the application deadline to ensure equitable access for firms facing immediate operational and liquidity constraints. The continued strong response following the extension highlighted MSMEs’ commitment to investment-led resilience even amid climate shocks. Green Transition applications were concentrated in agriculture, agro-processing, and manufacturing, with additional participation from tourism and recycling enterprises reflecting regional priorities around food security, climate adaptation, and sustainable value chains. Proposals frequently included investments in renewable energy, energy efficiency upgrades, waste reduction, and circular production models, increasingly framed not only as environmental compliance but as drivers of cost efficiency, productivity, and market access. Digital Transformation applications showed strong interest across manufacturing, agro-processing, digital services, ICT, and professional services. Proposed investments included enterprise systems, automation, data management tools, and e-commerce platforms—demonstrating that digitalisation is being pursued as a core operational strategy across traditional productive sectors, and increasingly as a way to strengthen continuity and supply chain resilience. Overall, the scale and profile of demand confirmed a robust pipeline of firms seeking catalytic capital to accelerate green and digital transformation. The 2025 response reinforced BRIDGE as a credible mechanism to advance climate resilience, digital readiness, and inclusive competitiveness across CARIFORUM— while pointing to clear potential for future scaling and stronger linkages to follow on financing and investment facilitation.

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