President-elect Hipólito Mejía spoke up in favor of strengthening Dominican relations with the Caribbean. El Siglo newspaper reports that while making a nine-hour stopover in Curacao on his way back to the DR from Venezuela, the President elect stressed the importance of Caribbean integration for the region’s development and fight against poverty. "We have to understand that we are from the Caribbean, a region with an immense potential for development in all orders and that to the degree that we become more compact we will be able to confront poverty with greater effectiveness," he said at a breakfast with Curaçao’s leading government authorities. Mejía expects to sign new agreements to foster joint progarms in tourism, farming and fishing.
