The Spanish government will pay for, and the Spanish entity "Green Caribbean," will construct, a plaza to host commercial fairs and the heavy informal commercial contacts along the Haitian border. Other NGO’s will also contribute to the project, estimated by Listin Diario, to be budgeted at around US! Million. Frontier trade is briskly conducted by hundreds of merchants in the frontier cities of Dajabon in the north, and Jimani and Pedernales in the south. Popular twice weekly fairs will be staged in the new plaza. At such events are traded such agricultural staples as rice, flour, beans, onions, and bananas; also food products such as beer, soft drinks, bottled water, refined sugar, pastas, salami and dried coconut; and manufactured goods such as motor oil, lubricants, outboard motors, batteries and building materials. Recent political instability in the neighboring republic and the attempts by Dominican authorities to control illegal immigration along the 360 kilometer frontier, have slowed trade however. Fausto gomera, head of the Dominican Center for Promotion of Exports in Pedernales, claims that frontier trade has dropped by 50% in this year’s first trimester. Official statistics are scarce, but its estimated that frontier trade brings several hundred million dollars to the DR annually, the bulk being realized at the border crossing in Pedernales.
