A R G O S Says,

aegap

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Mar 19, 2005
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DR1, Tuesday 4/18/2006

<TABLE cellSpacing=4 cellPadding=4 width=600 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><HR color=#cccccc noShade SIZE=1></TD></TR><TR><TD><!--- Headline 6 --->Bahia de las Aguilas hotel proposal
The Ministry of Tourism has announced that the French company it is backing for the construction of eco-lodges in the Bahia de las Aguilas area will be presenting its project in Santo Domingo this week. Bahia de las Aguilas is a stretch of virgin beach in the southwest of the country that has not been developed because it is a UNESCO biosphere reserve. The presentation will be at 9am on Thursday, 20 April at Salon AO-03 of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra. The Ministry announced that the press would only be allowed in for the opening words and conclusions of the presentation. The Ministry of Tourism explained that this is due to the limited space in the chosen venue.
The company will discuss the initial presentation made by the French company, Argos to President Leonel Fernandez during his visit to Paris. The original proposal is what motivated President Fernandez to request a more detailed presentation in Santo Domingo.
The Ministry of Environment opposes the construction of hotels in the protected area, citing four studies, including one commissioned by the Ministry of Tourism for the World Tourism Organization, that stress the environmental fragility of the area. He said, nevertheless, that if his department is presented with a project, it would evaluate it. The French investors have yet to fulfill this legal requirement for construction within a National Park. Sources within the Ministry of Environment said that Environment Minister Max Puig would not be attending the presentation. The Ministry of Environment supports the construction of the hotels in Pedernales province, but in the adjacent 17 kms of beach lands outside of the reserve.
As reported in Listin Diario, Environment Minister Max Puig said that his Ministry's brief is to look after these areas. "President Fernandez is very aware of this and if Balaguer created the protected areas, they are not going to be destroyed under the mandate of Dr. Leonel Fernandez," he told the Listin reporter when interviewed at the businessman Juan Carlos Morales' residence in Puerto Plata.
The bestselling book, "Collapse" by Jared Diamond points to how the creation of protected areas and the banning of construction within these has led the Dominican Republic to be a relative environmental success story, and warns against threats for their depredation. The book focuses on how societies destroy themselves and has a chapter on the Dominican Republic, crediting former President Joaquin Balaguer with the wise decision of creating the parks. </TD></TR><TR><TD><HR color=#cccccc noShade SIZE=1></TD></TR><TR><TD><!--- Headline 7 --->Lopez retracts partnership claim
Adolfo Lopez, of the Coalition for the Defense of Protected Areas, sent a letter to Minister of Tourism Felix Jimenez saying he was mistaken in suggesting that French architect Francois Fontes and the Minister were partners. Tourism Minister Felix Jimenez and Luc Litzler of Argos, S.A. denied the accusation. In a copy of the letter published in Clave Digital, Lopez says that the error of perception was due to "ambiguities in the information provided about the plans for development of Bahia de las Aguilas". He said he erred because of the Minister's staunch defense of Fontes' work. "The hiring of Fontes' services by Mr. Jimenez to carry out work for the Ministry, without a tender; the fact that Mr. Jimenez' private businesses are of a real estate nature and located in tourist areas; the fact that Mr. Jimenez has contracted Fontes to carry out the ground use plan for several tourism areas" are some of the reasons he mentions that led him to make the error of linking Jimenez and Fontes as partners. "Definitely, the close relationship between Jimenez and Fontes was the cause for the error, and this has not been clarified by the Minister of Tourism and Fontes," wrote Lopez, who apologized to the Minister. Lopez is a Spanish environmental activist who has carried out work for the Coalition, the Museum of Dominican Man, the National Hotels Association and the Bayahibe Hotel Association, among other organizations.
Lopez maintains his criticism of the project saying that what has been presented is but "a letter of intent, a very elegant one certainly, but with nothing to do with a presentation of a project because there are no architectural renditions, nor details, nor studies of any kind. Please, if there is really a project, I beg that it be sent to us," he says in his letter.
Argos, a French company with registered capital of EUR38,000 presented President Leonel Fernandez with a proposal for the construction of a US$600 million tourism project in Pedernales.
In a letter to Adolfo Lopez, Argos denied that the Ministry of Tourism had entrusted Argos with the preparation of a ground use plan for Bahia de las Aguilas and Pedernales.
Ministry of Tourism spokesperson Anna Jimenez had responded to inquiries about the incongruity between the low registered capital and the size of the investment by explaining that Argos is the company that carried out the studies to determine the density parameters for construction of hotel rooms in the coastal areas, not the investors in the project.
Lopez encourages Argos to look beyond the UNESCO biosphere reserve and consider investments in the adjacent beach areas in Pedernales that are outside the protected site.
In addition to Argos, the Presidency announced following the presentation that a company known as Grupo Mogador is proposing the investment. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
 

Mirador

On Permanent Vacation!
Apr 15, 2004
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I like the part where Argos demands the government to expropriate the land and then issue them full title to Bahia de Las Aguilas, and also tax exemption on their investment...


“...en contraparte a este proyecto ambicioso, pedimos a las autoridades locales y al Gobierno que nos facilite todas las autorizaciones administrativas necesarias, pero sobre todo la disponibilidad de los terrenos con plena propiedad para permitir la movilizaci?n r?pida de los fondos bancarios”.... “tambi?n pedimos que nos permitan beneficiar de las ventajas fiscales propuestas por el Gobierno”....

http://www.clavedigital.com/Portada/Articulo.asp?Id_Articulo=7275

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aegap

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Mar 19, 2005
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Bahia de las Aguilas hotels on hold
When the Ministry of Tourism-backed project for the construction of eco-lodges in Bahia de las Aguilas, a protected area in the southwestern province of Pedernales, was first announced last month during the President Fernandez' visit to France, the President gave the promoters several weeks to present a formal project. After listening to the presentation yesterday, President Leonel Fernandez again suggested that the French promoters (Mogador/Argos) of the construction of hotels in the Bahia de las Aguilas protected area present a more finished project this time through the corresponding government channels - Ministry of Environment.
Speaking at Pontificia Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra (PUCMM) in Santo Domingo, President Fernandez addressed a group of government officials, conservationists, lawmakers and community leaders from Pedernales province who had gathered to listen to the presentation and debate the wisdom of building hotels in the UNESCO biosphere reserve.
Architect Francois Fontes, of the French group Argos, gave an overview lasting approximately 15 minutes about the company's plans for the area, but did not present any formal environmental studies or technical details. He said that the investment would be US$100 million, and not US$600 million as had been announced previously. The Presidency of the Republic had highlighted the US$600 million investment as one of the achievements of the President's trip to France.
The promoters said that to carry out the project they would need the government to grant them use of the land in order for them to secure international financing. Fontes said that they planned to lease rather than purchase the land. They also requested tax exemption benefits [(as stipulated under current Dominican laws)] in order to build what they are calling the first 60-room eco-lodge that could be ready by 2007 and two more during 2008 and 2009.
Fontes stressed that in other countries' biosphere reserves, there are hotels in operation.
Short presentations by Ivonne Arias from the Coalition for the Defense of Protected Areas, and Luis Carvajal from the Academy of Sciences followed. The environmentalists maintain that Environmental Law 64-00 bans the construction of infrastructure in the protected areas other than those that facilitate its access and use by the general public and that the Ministry of Environment is entrusted with the approvals to build in the area. They suggested that hotel construction needed to be carried out outside the protected area, on the beaches that are closer to population areas.
The Coalition emphasized that studies carried out by the Academy of Sciences, the Dominican Environmental Consortium (CAD), the World Tourism Organization, UNESCO, the Cluster of Pedernales and the state university UASD all discourage hotel construction in the area.
As reported in Hoy, Tourism Minister Felix Jimenez explained that in his role as Minister of Tourism, he had hired the architect to carry out the land use plans for Pedernales and Bayahibe, and that these had been funded with private monies and government funds.
Jimenez said during the conclusion of the event that the presentation by the French architect would be followed up with a more formal study that would be presented in the next few months.

.................


It is my stimation all three sides are a joke!<O:p</O:p
 

Dolores1

DR1
May 3, 2000
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Interesting, despite Tourism Minister Jimenez saying that the government is fundng the land use studies in Pedernales, Luc Litzler, in the proposal's introduction, denies that Argos has a contract with the government to carry out a land use plan in Pedernales, and instead says they are acting independently.
 

aegap

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Mar 19, 2005
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The Bahia de las Aguilas study confusion
Tourism Minister Felix Jimenez, in a statement published in the Saturday issue of Hoy newspaper, denied having said that government funding had gone towards the preparation of a land use study in Bahia de las Aguilas and clarified that the Ministry had only contracted studies to French architect Francois Fontes for Parque del Este (Romana and Bayahibe area) and Samana. The statement the Minister stood to correct had been carried in the DR1 Friday update on Bahia de las Aguilas. The study would serve a US$600 million development in the area backed by the Ministry of Tourism.
Hoy published the Minister's correction where Jimenez aligns himself with a statement saying that Argos has been privately funded, contained in a letter written by Luc Litzler of Argos, the company presided by architect Francois Fontes. Litzler was clarifying that the company did not receive government funding to carry out the studies to prepare the project. Hoy had reported on this difference in opinion between Argos and the Minister when reporting on the proposal made at PUCMM regarding the Bahia de las Aguilas development.
A spokesperson for the Ministry, Ana Jimenez had clarified earlier that Argos was responsible for the area studies and not the investment, after environmentalists Luis Carvajal and Adolfo Lopez disputed the role of Argos, a company with assets of just EUR38,000 in carrying out a US$600 million investment.
Hoy published the Minister's clarification on Saturday. But then on Sunday, the newspaper stood by its original statement, and transcribed Jimenez's statements where they highlighted that the Minister did make the reference to government money being used for the Bahia de las Aguilas land use plan. "Because in my role as Minister of Tourism, I have contracted architect Fontes to carry out the land use plans for the peninsula of Pedernales and those for Romana Bayahibe," Hoy transcribes.
Argos did not release any land use study at the presentation made to the President, hoteliers and environmentalist at the PUCMM university last week.
 

aegap

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Mar 19, 2005
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Gallup poll on Bahia de las Aguilas hotels
When the Gallup-Hoy pollsters asked Dominicans about the government proposal to build hotels in Bahia de las Aguilas,48.8% of men and 40.8% of women responded that construction of hotels should be authorized in the area. [(38.6% of women and 37% of men were against)]. Interestingly, though, when polled by regions, those located in the south, where Bahia de las Aguilas is located, were the least enthusiastic about the construction of hotels, with only 43.5% in favor. When Dominicans living in the east, the Dominican region with the most hotel rooms, were polled, 61.2% were in favor[ and 26.9% were against].



I cannot find the Hoy article online. what edition was it?

edited to add:

Hoy Digital: Major?a favorece hoteles
 
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