Mario Méndez, the editor economic of the newspaper Hoy, says that Haiti’s signing of the International Monetary Fund agreement is good news for the Dominican Republic. The president of the IMF recently visited Haiti to sign the agreement with Haitian President Rene Preval.
According to Mario Méndez, the agreement opens the doors to the international financing community and foreign investment, which should facilitate the progress of the economic reforms in Haiti so that the country may enter into a process of stable growth. The Dominican Republic will benefit if the level of consumption of the Haitian people is increased and if less Haitians need to migrate to this side of the border, a serious economic and social problem faced by the country deals. On the other hand, he says it is also a challenge for the Dominican Republic to continue with its own economic reforms and not fall behind, allowing investments that would have come here to be diverted to Haiti.
Mario Méndez says that the days of donations under a paternalistic criteria are over. He says that Haiti has begun a process of reforms starting with a customs system involving three tariff levels of which the maximum is 15%. Next in line is the privatization of state enterprises that are currently a heavy burden on the state as they only operate with large losses.