President Leonel Fernández agreed with Mexican intellectual Jorge Castañeda who in a gathering at the National Palace commented that Latin American nations need to increase their tax collections so that the states can reduce the poverty levels and reduce the inequalities among citizens. Castañeda, a philosopher and lecturer in the history of economics at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico and New York University, feels that Latin American tax collection levels should be equivalent to 30% of the Gross Domestic Product. President Fernández said that tax collections in the Dominican Republic are only equivalent to 13-14% of the GDP. Congress has rejected proposals made by the central government to increase tax collections. Castañeda has studied in Princeton and Paris universities and today travels around the world promoting meetings between leading politicians and thinkers of this century. He was in Santo Domingo on occasion of the International Book Fair of Santo Domingo.
