From 12 to 15 November 2025, Expertise France participated in La Semaine de France en République dominicaine (French Week in the Dominican Republic) in Santo Domingo, organised by the Franco–Dominican Chamber of Commerce (CCI Franco Dominicana), under the direction of Thomas Plisson.
For this mission, Expertise France joined Team France Export (France’s one-stop export support network bringing together public services, Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Business France, and Bpifrance), alongside AFD and Proparco.
This event demonstrated our ability to work closely together as an AFD Group since the 3 entities merged in 2022. Special thanks to Valery Vicini (Regional Director, Dominican Republic and Haiti at Proparco); Francois Carcel ( Deputy Director – Dominican Republic agency at ADF); and Expertise France representatives: Morgane Berger (Regional Representative for the Southern Cone, Brazil and the Caribbean); Clément Lafargue (EU LAC Project Coordinator), and Nathan Rousseau (Open Innovation expert).
Held over three days, the event brought together the local businesses and innovation community through a mix of B2B meetings and thematic conferences, enabling concrete exchanges. For us, it offered a strategic opportunity to meet with local and French companies established in the Caribbean and the French Overseas Territories, key target beneficiaries of the EU-LAC Digital Accelerator. During the conference sessions, Clément Lafargue presented the EU-LAC Digital Accelerator to a broad audience, helping disseminate information about the programme and raise awareness among territorial stakeholders.
In line with the programme’s objective to reinforce participation from the Caribbean, this week helped expand the pipeline of potential beneficiaries and open innovation challenges from the region. Several high-level corporate contacts were identified across energy, transport, cybersecurity, certification and impact investing, with five potential challenges emerging in areas such as solar, mobility systems, airport operations, AI and social impact.
Several promising actors were engaged across priority sectors, including Thales Cybersecurity Products (interest in regional pilots around digital trust and critical infrastructure), Schneider Electric (energy optimisation and smart infrastructure), SOFRATESA (transport systems and infrastructure digitalisation), Soventix Caribbean (renewable energy optimisation and predictive maintenance), and AERODOM (VINCI Airports), which expressed strong interest in data- and AI-driven pilots linked to sustainability and operations.
The Caribbean context also presents a specific opportunity for the EU-LAC programme: companies are often smaller than their European counterparts, enabling the programme (through its dedicated size derogation for Caribbean actors) to support SMBs in their digital transformation journeys while still engaging larger players through structured challenges.
The presence of Caribbean Export (Michelle Aybar and Romily Thevenin, both of whom are among the 9 EU LAC consortium partners) further strengthened regional coordination. A dedicated bilateral meeting opened opportunities to engage more Dominican corporates, such as BANFONDESA, identified as a high-priority lead, with potential challenges related to digital banking, digital credit cards, and fintech.
This active participation in a strategic gateway territory for Caribbean engagement yielded rich insights and concrete opportunities. Building on the momentum generated, the next steps will focus on consolidating outreach to beneficiaries in 2026, in close coordination with the Franco–Dominican Chamber of Commerce and other key actors met on site, such as ProDominicana (Dominican Republic Export and Investment Promotion Centre) and AIRD (Industrial Association of the Dominican Republic).
