The local association of soft drink bottlers has mustered enough support to boycott the signing of the Caribbean Free Trade Agreement. The agreement was to be signed on Wednesday, 19 April in Santo Domingo. The main bottleneck is that the Caribbean nations (primarily Trinidad & Tobago) are standing by their objection to exclude soft drinks from the treaty. Local manufacturers say that local conditions, many in place to protect the sugar and bottling industries, place the DR at a competitive disadvantage. They say that local raw material inputs — sugar (94%) and soft drink concentrate (20-30%) — are heavily taxed. The treaty contemplates the duty free import of soft drinks that are not affected by these taxes. The soft drink manufacturers state there are also high local taxes on imported containers (25%) and that local producers have much higher power costs, as they have to maintain independent power systems plus pay the high fees of the private power distributors. The bottlers say that consumers would prefer the much cheaper imports thus endangering the jobs of 4,600 people, in addition to 50,000 other indirect jobs. Soft drink bottlers contribute RD$350 million in taxes and consume 54,000 tons of sugar a year.
