Mr. Horacio Alvarez, executive director of the Asociación Dominicana de Exportadores (ADOEXPO), said that “Traditional Dominican exports will decrease each year that goes by due to the lack of a financial program for the domestic productive sector.”
He added that “agricultural exports have lessened due to the high interest rate of 30 percent. Other countries maintain an interest rate of between 3.8 and six percent.”
Mr. Alvarez was speaking at a lunch given by the American Chamber of Commerce in Moca. He added that “the non-traditional exports have not been diversified enough to compensate for the lower traditional exports. When the non-traditional exports were increasing, the government killed the goose that laid the golden eggs by imposing the famous recargo cambiario (exchange surcharge) of 36 percent.
“The 36 percent exchange surcharge plus the effects of law 199 have penalized the traditional exports,” said Mr. Alvarez. He explained that “in relation to the financing of traditional exports and their by-products, the Monetary Board decided last September, 1994, to allow 10 percent of commercial bank loans to be allocated for this purpose. This penalizes the production of cocoa by-products and also, cigarettes.”