Tourism Minister Felix Jimenez has expressed his opposition to the abolition of tax incentives for the tourism industry, as contemplated in Law 158-01. The government committed to abolishing these incentives when it signed the IMF stand by agreement. Paragraph 19 of the IMF letter of intent establishes that the government needs to begin to prepare a bill in March, which would gradually eliminate the incentives for the tourism industry and free zones, as part of the new tax package for 2006 that is intended to compensate for the consequences of DR-CAFTA, once it goes into effect. Jimenez said that with or without the IMF, the country must provide a guarantee that those incentives remain in place.