The DR’s Ambassador to the U.S., Bernardo Vega, testified yesterday at a U.S. Congressional public hearing held in Washington on the textile parity bill. The hearing at the Ways and Means Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives featured numerous speakers in favor of the proposal, including officials from the Commerce and State Departments and a series of Ambassadors from countries slated to benefit from the bill. The Ways and Means Committee is where all trade and tax legislation must originate in the House. In his presentation to the Committee, Ambassador Vega got right to the point. It is in the economic interest of the U.S. to help the region. "The United States has had a trade surplus with the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) region for 12 years. This excess is the eighth largest in the world," he pointed out. He argued that bill would not only help several nations recover from Hurricanes Georges and Mitch, but should aid the economic position of Haiti, one of the poorest nations in the world. As for the DR, "Textile assembly is the third greatest source of exchange for the Dominican Republic and 93% of this assembly is done using North American components…140,000 Dominicans convert North American cloth into clothing." Giving Dominican textile goods the same market access conditions as Mexico now enjoys under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is critical to the economic stability of the DR.
