According to a report in the List?n Diario newspaper, during his visit to Europe this month, President Leonel Fern?ndez will sign bilateral agreements for the promotion and protection of French and Italian investments in the DR, in order to provide new incentives to potential investors from those countries in the DR. President Fern?ndez will become the first Dominican President to carry out an official visit to France. He will meet in Paris next Thursday with members of the "Movimiento de la Empresa Francesa" and the "Comite Nacional de Patronos Franceses (CNPF) and on Monday 18 January in Rome, he will have a luncheon with the "Confederaci?n Italiana de la Industria". The meetings of President Fern?ndez with the Presidents of Spain, France and Italy and with Pope John Paul II will be transmitted via satellite to the DR and other 46 countries in Latin America, Europe and the US by Univision. In the DR the transmissions will be seen on Telemicro, Channel 5, that will send a special team to cover the historic visit of the Dominican statesman. President Fern?ndez will travel with a group of media editors including Mario Alvarez Dugan, of Hoy newspaper; Persio Maldonado, El Nuevo Diario newspaper; An?bal de Castro, Rumbo newsweekly magazine; Mar?a Elena N??ez, Cadena de Noticias television and radio newscasts; and Carlos Tam?rez, El Caribe newspaper. The President will also be accompanied by businessmen Celso Marranzini, president of the National Council of Private Business (CONEP); banker Ram?n B?ez Figueroa, businessman Jos? Miguel Bonetti; Osmar Ben?tez, executive vice president of the Agribusiness Council; and businesswoman Elena Viyella de Paliza, among others. President Fern?ndez will depart on Tuesday, 12 January, making a stopover in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he will meet with Puerto Rican Governor Pedro Rosell?. He will continue on to Spain where he will have lunch with Spanish head of state Jos? Mar?a Aznar. On 13 January he will arrive to Paris, France for a four-day agenda of government and private sector meetings. In Paris, he will meet with President Jacques Chirac; Prime Minister Lionel Jospin; President of the Senate Christian Poncele and the president of the Court of Cassation, Pierre Truche; and with the French Business Association. He will receive a Honoris Causa doctorate at the Sorbonne University, meet with the congressional commissioner for foreign affairs, Jacques Lang. He is expected back in Santo Domingo on 21 January.
