| Daily News - Monday, 14 March 2005 |
The government party's only senator, Jose Tomas Perez (PLD-National District), asked the government to govern without Congress. He suggested that President Fernandez rule by presidential decree. Perez told the Listin Diario that he expects relations between Congress and the Executive Branch to worsen. The PRD majority Congress is requesting the rehiring of several PRD appointees and that the attorney general desist with actions taken that affect high-ranking officers in the past Mejia government. Cardinal Nicolas Lopez Rodriguez has set the tone: "This is not about political persecution, but rather about persecution to politicians."
Members of the Circulo de Montevideo are meeting in Santo Domingo, hosted by President Leonel Fernandez. The forum aims to open up new forms of governance and achieve sustainable development in Latin America. Visiting for the XII Plenary Meeting are former President of Costa Rica Oscar Arnulfo Arias, former President of Uruguay Julio Maria Sanguinetti, former President of Brazil Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former President of Colombia Belisario Betancourt, among others. The meetings are taking place from 13-15 March in Santo Domingo at the Fundacion Global Democracia y Desarrollo.
See http://www.funglode.org/circulomontevideo/index.htm
Bernardo Vega, an economist who served as the Dominican ambassador to Washington, writes that there are several very important changes in the Dominican economy. The thing is, we often do not recognize these changes when they happen. The first change is the fact that last year Dominican exports of sugar, coffee, tobacco and cigars only produced US$122 million, but the wages and other local expenses, together with taxes and dividends paid to the Dominican treasury by Falconbridge Dominicana alone, reached US$136 million. This means that just one industry contributed more to the national treasury than the three most traditional exports. This, according to Vega, points out the importance of mining and the need to promote more of it.
Another structural change that he has observed is the fact that of every three dollars that our country pays for imports (except the free zones), one of the three dollars goes to pay for petroleum and its derivatives. Thus, the terrible consequences of our oil dependency and the need to lessen the dependency thorough the use of alternative energy sources including natural gas and hydroelectric energy.
A third change is seen in the fact that one out of every three tourists that visit the Dominican Republic is an American, and we have traditionally thought that most of our tourists were European. Even when these "non-resident Americans" are Dominicans that have naturalized American citizenship, the truth is that with all of the direct flights from more than 20 U.S. cities, we are receiving tourists that spend more than the Germans, Italians and French, whose presence, it is true, diminished in 2004 in spite of the fact that the euro reached higher levels against the peso, making the DR an even less expensive destination for Europeans.
Another past true that is no longer is that most of the Dominican foreign debt stems from grants from international financial agencies like the IDB and the World Bank and the IMF. Unfortunately, the truth is that just 31% of the foreign debt is with these agencies. Dominican obligations with private banks, and through our sovereign bonds, accounts for 35% of the total debt. Moreover, the DR owes the United States government 12% of the total, Spain 6% and to other governments 16%.
It so happens that most of the debt was taken at commercial interest rates and time, in many cases without any transparency in the operation and for projects that were not priorities and were overvalued in the first place. Luckily, the IMF has placed debt limits that begin with the initial contracts, not with the disbursements.
One good point that Vega brings up is the fact that over the past five months the general public has more money in Central Bank certificates than the commercial banks themselves. This is a sign of confidence.
Lastly, there is one more structural change to look at. Previously, most of the workers in the free zones were involved in textile manufacturing and assembly, but the increase in electronics, service centers, shoes, jewelry and pharmaceuticals, together with the recent reduction of textile employees combines to show that nearly 40% of the free zone employees are now in non-textile industries. Vegas thinks that this is healthy and a step in the right direction.
For over 100 years people have been searching for oil in the Dominican Republic but with no great results. The legal and institutional structures that revolve around the explorations seem to be as viscous as the oil that is the black gold everybody wants. According to El Caribe, 18 companies have searched for oil in the Dominican Republic. For some 30 years, since drilling began in 1904, thousands of barrels have been extracted and exported, but nobody knows where to or the quality of the oil. Records do show that many thousands of barrels were taken out of the country.
In 1979, a Venezuelan mission said that petroleum prospects in the country were "promising" because the country has the basic geological formations according to geophysicist Myrfin Jones Evans and geologist Jose Luis Padron.
At the present time there are three companies drilling for oil in three different regions of the country, and all three have renewed their concession licenses in order to continue their work. The Petrolera Once-Once is concentrating in the Cibao Valley in the area around San Francisco de Macoris, Villa Rivas and Sanchez. Maleno Oil Company is looking in the Enriquillo watershed area in the province of Independencia. Murfin Dominicanca is drilling near Azua and Punta Salinas. The head of the Mining Office, Octavio Lopez, certainly does not want to create "illusions" or create false hope as happened after the exploration at Charco Largo in 1981. Rene Soler, a mining engineer with experience in Venezuela, told reporters that "the country has petroleum, but not for export." According to the engineer, there is sufficient oil for the Dominican Republic to be nearly self-sufficient. Although reports vary, the daily consumption of petroleum products is somewhere between 140,000 and 150,000 barrels per day. The Dominican Refinery has a capacity to refine as much as 52,000 barrels a day. While current exploration is going on, the Dominican Refinery has announced proposals from Petrobras to drill exploratory well in the sea off the Dominican coast and the Mining Office is looking at agreements with Ecuador, Venezuela and Spain. There are even negotiations to buy natural gas from Qatar.
For years Dominican living abroad have sent money home. Last year they sent more than US$2.7 billion to the Dominican Republic. Now, according to the Listin Diario, there is a new wave of remittances: food packages.
"Moving companies" are handling over a thousand container loads of food packages a year. Each container carries between 100 and 120 boxes of food for relatives in the DR. The cost to send such assistance is about an average of US$75.00. The movers, associated under the mantel of Freight Consolidators of the North Region (Asocanorte), number 24 with four more outside the association. According to the people that were interviewed by the Listin Diario reporters, it takes about US$150 to fill one of the food boxes and about US$200 to US$250 to fill one of the plastic tanks that are also used. While shipping is not fast, it is very reliable and many families have come to depend on the boxes for survival. The business is profitable for the movers and the Dominican Customs office. The 1,344 containers that came into Puerto Plata paid over RD$2 million and the Aduana gets another RD$201 million. Working just with averages, the reporters figured that these food packages are bringing in remittances worth very close to US$25 million.
Every Sunday at the Kilometer 12 marker on the Sanchez Highway, the flea market transforms the area into a mixture of pedestrians, hawkers, buyers and tourists which make the area a dynamo of economic activity. Each week 7,000 customers go to the market, according to numbers generated by the National District Municipal Council –ADN. The flea market that operates under the flyway of Luperon Avenue over the Sanchez Highway, has spaces for up to 600 vendors. The whole area is supervised by the municipality which charges RD$400 each month to the vendors, plus RD$20 each Sunday, all in accordance to the four-year contract currently in force. The data from the municipality shows that 70% of the vendors are not from Santo Domingo and that 45% are Haitian. And flea markets are proliferating. In Villa Consuelo, also in the National District, in Buenos Aires and Las Palmas in Herrera and in Los Alcarrizos, all in Santo Domingo West. In Santo Domingo East, there are markets in Villa Duarte and El Almirante. The ADN reports also show that approximately 5,500 people visit the Buenos Aires market and a similar number the markets at Villa Duarte, El Almirante and Villa Consuelo. The report further attributes the markets to the creation of 120,000 direct jobs.
Three members of China national women's volleyball team that participated in the Athens Olympics Games are in Santo Domingo to participate in the 23-game training schedule with the Dominican women's volleyball team. The first game is scheduled for this evening, Monday, 14 March at the UASD sports arena. This is the first time that a women's volleyball team from China visits. Most of the stars of the Dominican national women's team are abroad with professional teams, but team members Sofia Heredia, Priscila Rivera and Juana Gonzalez are here and will participate in the games vs. the Tianjin team from China.
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