A group of renown Dominican businessmen meeting with President Leonel Fernández on Friday recommended that the government devaluate the peso. The Central Bank has opposed the devaluation on grounds that it would increase the cost of living, affecting the majority of the population. Measures taken by the Central Bank to counteract the increase in money in circulation, in most part the result of overspending of the government itself, especially in December, have resulted in an increase in the lending rates of commercial bank loans, negatively affecting business. The businessmen met with the President last week. Also participating in the meeting were Cardinal Nicolas de Jesús López Rodríguez and Monsignor Agripino Núñez Collado. Celso Marranzini, president of the Consejo Nacional de la Empresa Privada, the largest business organization, is opposed to the devaluation. Furthermore, in Santo Domingo to participate in a Latin American forum on modernization of state enterprises, the director general of the Inter American Development Bank, Enrique Iglesias, recommended that Dominican authorities continue applying fiscal and monetary measures in order to avoid having to devaluate. He said devaluation is an easy way out, but that now governments in Latin America are resorting to adjustments in interest rates, reductions in government spending, and other fiscal measures.
