THE five Development Meets on the Jamaica Amateur Athletics Association’s (JAAA’s) calendar, which were scheduled for the Stadium East field between January 16 and February 21 next year will be staged at the National Stadium.

This will happen because the eroded Stadium East facility will be closed for repairs by Singapore company, Intersurface Pte Limited.

General manager of Independence Park Limited (IPL), Major Desmon Brown, on Friday confirmed the new arrangements for the track meets last Friday.

“What we plan to do is that while work is going on at the Stadium East track, the Development Meets we will have inside the Stadium,” Major Brown disclosed.

“We can do that because the commitment is for both tracks, so we know at the end of the year we will be changing both tracks, so because of that commitment we’re going to take the Development Meets inside,” he added.

The Douglas Forrest Invitational and the Queen’s/Grace Jackson meets are scheduled for January 16 and 30, while the Herb McKenley Classic, Camperdown Classic and Eastern Championships are set for February 6, 13 and 21, respectively.

The resurfacing work on both synthetic tracks is being made possible by a barter deal between the Jamaican government and theirs Singapore counterparts, which made US$1,000,000 (J$89,000,000) available throught their private sector.

Sports Minister Olivia Grange recently travelled to Singapore with a delegation that included Olympic medallists Veronica Campbell-Brown and Asafa Powell, as well as World Youth and World Junior 100 gold medal champion Dexter Lee to consummate the deal.

“I did consummate the deal and I came back with (money for) two tracks. I came up with sponsorship for the warm-up track and sponsorship for the main track,” Grange said.

Under the deal, Jamaica is helping Singapore to market the inaugural Youth Olympics set for next summer. Both parties started negotiating following the 2008 Beijing Games where Jamaica secured a record 11 medals — six gold, three silver and two bronze.

Major Brown expressed delight that the work will be starting soon.

“I’m pleased that we have word that the (Stadium East) track will start shortly. We have a window for the Stadium East track to be completed. We’re working on that window and we hope that there is no delay,” he said.

“The track is a certified track. It’s not very popular in this side of the world, but it is IAAF certified,” Major Brown added.