(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Ambassador Gail Mathurin has been appointed Director General in the Office of Trade Negotiations within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat.

The Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN) was established as a Specialised Department as a result of the incorporation of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM) into the Secretariat. The OTN will be based in Kingston, Jamaica, with units in Barbados and Geneva.

These were among the decisions the Heads of Government took on Saturday during business sessions of the Thirtieth Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM at the Guyana International Conference Centre (GICC) in Georgetown, Guyana.

At their Twentieth Intersessional Meeting in Belize City, Belize, in March 2009, Heads of Government decided that the CRNM would report to the CARICOM Secretariat and through the Secretariat to the Councils of the Community.

The Hon. Patrick Manning, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago said then that the negotiating machinery now had a clear structure of reporting. That structure, the Prime Minister said, should provide a greater level of comfort and confidence in the negotiating mechanism.

The OTN issue was a key item that the Heads of Government considered in Georgetown last Saturday. The decision flowed from a recommendation from the Twentieth Meeting of the Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee Meeting on External Trade Negotiations which met at the CARICOM Secretariat in Georgetown on 1 July 2009.

The changes in the structure of the Region’s approach to trade negotiations are being made ahead of the commencement of negotiations for a CARICOM-Canada Trade and Development Agreement.