§ Mr. PriorTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the status of the Joint Directorate. [126752]
§ Mr. CabornThe Joint Directorate was renamed in 1994 as the Joint Export Promotion Directorate, which was run and staffed jointly by the DTI and the FCO. It was also charged with providing a general policy framework for the export promotion work of those two Departments, which was branded as the Overseas Trade Services.
My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary announced on 12 March 1999, Official Report, columns 399–400W, the Government's response to the Cabinet Secretary's Review of Export Promotion, the core of which was that all trade promotion development activities of the DTI and the FCO should be unified in a new joint operation, British Trade International, with a single Chief Executive, Sir David Wright. Copies of the report have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
The Joint Export Promotion Directorate and its responsibilities were subsumed in the restructuring of British Trade International.