In the last three months companies in the free zones have dismissed more than 8,000 employees. The figure was given to the newspaper El Caribe by Mr. Eddy Martinez, the executive director of the Asociacion Dominicana de Zonas Francas (ADOZONA). He added that 1995 was a good year for the free zones until September, when the first announcement about the disagreement between the US president and the US Congress over the Parity Bill. “From then on, many of the companies that were in the free zones started to move to Mexico because of the advantages that apply there.”