In a lightening-fast one hour visit, the Brazilian Foreign Relations Minister Celso Luiz Amorim met with President Fernandez in Santo Domingo to explore the possible sale of Super Tucano warplanes for the Dominican air force, a private presidential executive jet and a facility to produce ethanol, as reported in El Caribe.
Amorim stopped in the Dominican Republic on his way back to Brazil after attending the OAS Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
At the brief press conference at the end of his conversation with President Fernandez, Amorim pointed out that before he came here, a Brazilian commercial delegation had visited the country to look into the possibilities of aircraft sales and the sale of a factory that would produce ethanol out of sugar cane. According to the minister, using just 10% ethanol in the gasoline would save the Dominican Republic US$100 million a year in fuel costs. He also pointed out that one of the commercial delegates was an expert in “bio-diesel” fuel as well as technicians from the Tropical Agriculture Institute, the largest facility of its kind in the world.
Amorim also said that he had expressed his worries about the renewed violence in Haiti and felt that an increase in the UN Security Force would be needed.