Since the announcement of the resumption of the floundering agreement with the International Monetary Fund just one week ago, the US dollar rate has fallen from a high of RD$55 to the present rate of around RD$45 as posted by commercial banks. There continues to be a scarcity of dollars available for sale at the lower price, nevertheless. The president of the Association of Commercial Banks (ABC), Jose Manuel Lopez Valdez, is optimistic that the IMF agreement would help stabilize the exchange rate, reactivate economic confidence and restore macroeconomic stability, as reported in the Listin Diario. Lopez Valdez singled out the government’s reacquisition of the electricity distribution companies, known as the “Edes”, which led to the interruption in the agreement with the IMF, as the one factor that could still threaten the Dominican economy. He linked the government’s decision to take over the power distributors with the peso’s decline, exclusive of the IMF agreement. On the positive side, he lauded the new fiscal controls that he said would strengthen the Dominican currency against the US dollar, although he conceded that no one knew what a “reasonable rate” for the peso would be.