The new Minister of Foreign Affairs, Caonabo Javier Castillo, will now decide whether the country adheres to agreements signed with GATT and the World Trade Organization in regard to staples such as sugar, rice, milk, chicken, beans, garlic, onions and corn, or gives way to local special interest pressure groups which are advocating protectionist measures for their products.
President Balaguer removed Minister Carlos Morales Troncoso, who had favored the two private sugar producers with the passing of a ruling at a meeting called at the National Sugar Institute (Inazucar) giving that organization the control over sugar imports. Inazucar is said to be controlled by the sugar producers.
Mr Morales Troncoso himself is a former president of the largest private sugar producer in the country. Against the measure are merchants representatives and the local manufacturers that use sugar as a raw material and, in view of the monopoly of the local sugar producers, have to pay higher than market prices.
Mario Mendez, economic editor of the newspaper Hoy, explains that in the case of sugar, the board of the Instituto Azucarero Dominicano (Inazucar) has tried to pass a ruling that contradicts agreements adopted by the local Comisión Nacional de Seguimiento a los Acuerdos del GATT, a high level government committee created to follow up the agreements the country signed leading to its admission to the World Trade Organization.
The commission had agreed that Inazucar could present figures on the shortage in the domestic market, so that the Ministry of Industry and Commerce could allow the importation of the quantities necessary to fill the deficit. Inazucar recently held an emergency meeting to study the new regulation that had been set just hours before. It was called to discuss, under pressure, another proposal that clashed with the international agreements. It is reported that it was irregularly carried with the support of the Minister of Foreign Relations and the director of Inazucar.