Ambassador Gail Mathurin, Director General Office of Trade Negotiations of CARICOM, resident in Barbados, gave an interview courtesy the Cuban Ambassador, Francisco Fernandez, serving to exchange on the good state of bilateral relations of the island with the Community. They reviewed the existing Agreement on Trade and Cooperation, which was updated in recent months allowing free access to the Cuban market of 297 products, from the request of member countries of the block. The Director highlighted the brief but successful visit during past summer to Santiago de Cuba to attend the First Cuba-Caribbean Business Forum, organized precisely to disseminate existing trade and business possibilities between our Caribbean countries. It was important that the Forum, to be held every two years, attended representatives of CARICOM, OECS, CEDA and several Chambers of Commerce and Industry of the region, also accompanied by senior government officials and entrepreneurs.
For its part, the Cuban ambassador extended the invitation to his interlocutor to attend the celebration of the CARICOM-Cuba´s Day, on December 8, which coincides with the establishment of diplomatic relations between the first four independent Caribbean countries and Cuba, date to which the largest island of the Antilles pays tribute annually due to the importance of that act to break the isolation imposed by US and to develop cooperative relations among our nations.