Saint Vincent Export Data: $40.80M in 2023, Down 9.2%

Export Value Has Fluctuated Over the Past Five Years

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines exported $40.80 million worth of goods in 2023, down 9.2% from $44.93 million in 2022. This is the most recent year with verified trade data available in this dataset, which covers a full five years, from 2019 through 2023.

Export value has moved unevenly across those five years. It stood at $38.16 million in 2019, jumped to $55.21 million in 2020, and fell back to $34.72 million in 2021. It then recovered to $44.93 million in 2022, before easing to $40.80 million in 2023. A sharp rise followed by a sharp fall and then a partial recovery describes a small, volatile export economy rather than one moving steadily in a single direction.

This dataset does not include information explaining what drove any of those individual year-to-year swings. For a small island economy, a handful of shipments can move the total meaningfully. This kind of volatility across a five-year window is not unusual on its own. At $40.80 million, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines' 2023 export total is modest by international standards. That reflects the country's small population and land area rather than any single weak sector.

Wheat Flour and Milled Goods Dominate the Export List

Products of the milling industry, primarily wheat flour and related goods, led every export category in 2023. They were worth $10.93 million, or 26.8% of the total, by far the largest single category. The East Caribbean Group of Companies is headquartered in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. It describes itself as the leading exporter of flour, rice and animal feed in the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States. That position lines up with this category's dominant share of the export total. Food industries' residues and prepared animal fodder followed at 16.7% ($6.80 million), a category closely related to milling and feed production. Fish and crustaceans, molluscs and other aquatic invertebrates contributed 11.0% ($4.47 million).

Beverages, spirits and vinegar added 8.3% ($3.38 million), and machinery and mechanical appliances contributed 6.7% ($2.72 million). Aluminium and articles thereof added 3.6% ($1.48 million), and vegetables and certain roots and tubers contributed 3.5% ($1.44 million). Glass and glassware added 3.2% ($1.31 million), and iron and steel contributed 2.8% ($1.14 million). Fruit and nuts closed out the top ten at 2.2% ($0.91 million).

A list topped so heavily by milled grain products, worth more than the next two categories combined, describes an export economy built substantially around food processing and animal feed manufacturing. That market is, as the partner data below shows, mostly regional. The three leading categories, milling products, food industry residues and fodder, and fish and seafood, sit well ahead of the rest. The remaining seven categories divide what's left among beverages, machinery, metals and other smaller goods.

Barbados and Fellow OECS Members Buy Most of These Exports

Barbados was Saint Vincent and the Grenadines' largest export destination in 2023, absorbing 20.8% of the total, worth $8.50 million. St. Lucia ranked second at 15.1% ($6.16 million), and St. Kitts & Nevis followed at 13.3% ($5.44 million). Together, those three destinations made up 49.3% of total export value.

Dominica added 11.6% ($4.75 million), and the United States contributed 11.3% ($4.61 million). Antigua & Barbuda added 9.1% ($3.72 million), and Trinidad & Tobago contributed 5.8% ($2.36 million). Grenada added 4.8% ($1.98 million). The British Virgin Islands contributed 1.4% ($0.55 million), and Belgium closed out the top ten at 1.3% ($0.52 million).

Nine of these ten export destinations are fellow Caribbean nations or territories. They are Barbados, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, and the British Virgin Islands. Only the USA and Belgium sit outside the region. That pattern lines up closely with the milling and food categories that dominate the export list. Flour, animal feed and fish products from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines ship mainly to neighboring islands rather than distant markets.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines belongs to the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States and the wider Caribbean Community. Both are regional groupings built in part around easing trade among member states. The heavy concentration of export destinations within the Caribbean seen in this dataset is consistent with that regional trade orientation. The fact sheet itself does not reference these organizations directly.

Taken together, this dataset's most recent confirmed year describes a small export economy anchored in regional food and feed products. Those products sell overwhelmingly to fellow members of the Eastern Caribbean community, with only a modest share reaching markets outside the region.