The Under Secretary of Commerce for Market Access and Fulfillment, David Bohigian, repeated the litany of problems facing the Dominican entry into the DR-CAFTA agreement. Bohigian said that there was official concern about the costs associated with clearing customs as well as over the protection given to intellectual property and copyrights, especially in the areas of pharmaceuticals and technology. Bohigian said that it was “not enough to sign papers and exchange them” but that rather things have to work and assure farmers, workers and industrialists in each country that their rights are safe and that they can benefit from the free trade agreement. The US government official said that he was particularly worried about the high costs of clearing customs. He said that his office, that is responsible for seeing that agreements signed by the United States Trade Representative are properly observed according to the agreements, and that he was really concerned about customs issues. The official was attending the “Dominican Republic-Central America: Sharing challenges to share the future,” seminar in Santo Domingo last week, organized by Latin Finance.