In an interview published today in Listin Diario, the President of the Association of Industries in the Dominican Republic (AIRD), Nassin Alemany, called on the Government to face squarely and urgently the many distortions in the structure of the DR’s tariff regime. Alemany said that it is not enough to simply cut tariff levels; distortions in the tariff structure must be addressed or else Dominican manufacturers will be driven out of business as globalization comes to the DR. He said that for too many Dominican industries the cost of machinery, components and other inputs is too high because of high tariffs on such inputs. He said many shoemakers have closed doors in the DR, not because their labor costs were high, but because their input costs made them unable to compete with cheap imports of finished shoes. He also cited the case of refrigerator maker Neveras Dominicanas, which went bankrupt because their components, once assessed by customs and tariffs paid, to be worth more than an assembled and finished refrigerator.
