(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) CARICOM Secretary-General, H.E. Edwin Carrington will lead a delegation from the Secretariat to participate in landmark meetings with Mr. Pascal Lamy, Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and Caribbean Ministers of Trade, in Kingston, Jamaica April 12 and 13. The Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM) and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) will also participate in the discussions on strategies aimed at adding political impetus to re-start suspended global free trade talks.

The WTO Director-General is hoping for a full resumption of the collapsed Doha Development Round of negotiations. To this end he has been consulting with Trade Ministers across the globe.

The Doha Development Round of World Trade Organization negotiations aims to lower trade barriers around the world, permitting free trade between countries of varying prosperity. Talks have stalled over a divide between the developed nations led by the European Union, the United States and Japan and the major developing countries (represented by the G20 developing nations), led and represented mainly by India, Brazil, China and South Africa.

The Doha round began with a ministerial-level meeting in Doha, Qatar in 2001.

In addition to Trade Ministers of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), a delegation from the Dominican Republic headed by Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Carlos Morales Troncoso, and Ms. Gisela Garcia, Ambassador of the Republic of Cuba in Jamaica will attend the meeting.

The WTO Director General and Ministers will discuss the current state of WTO negotiations, the Caribbean’s goals and concerns in the negotiation process, and related issues.

Lamy, a French economist and former European Union (EU) trade commissioner, began his tenure as Director-General of the Geneva-based WTO on September 1, 2005.