The president of the Association of Shipping Companies of the Dominican Republic (ANRD), Teddy Heinsen, said on 8 June 2017, that the main challenges the country needs to overcome to become a logistics hub are the streamlining of approval of company operating licenses and the market opening of the cargo transport system, still controlled by the unions.
Heinsen said the granting of the operating licenses takes months here to be approved, while in other countries these are granted in two or three weeks. “When a potential client comes from another country to see if he can establish a logistics center to not only to distribute (goods) locally but to also resell goods to another site in Latin America, the client will ask how quickly the company can be up and operating. If our reply is “three or four months”, the client may elect to go elsewhere their business can be in operation in two weeks,” explained Heinsen during the breakfast-conference organized by the ANRD with the collaboration of the Customs Agency (DGA), the American Chamber of Commerce and the Dominican Association of Operators and Logistics Centers.
The event was held at the Dominican Republic Association of Industries Torre Empresarial meeting hall. Presentations were made by the director of the Customs Agency Enrique Ramírez, and logistics shipping experts Salvador Figueroa Sánchez, Alexander Schad and Carlos Flaquer.
Heinsen added that other obstacles for the country becoming a logistics hub are the high cost of domestic ground transport that discourages companies from entering the Dominican market.
During the conference, the director of the Customs Agency, Enrique Ramírez, said that from a Customs perspective the country is ready – there are clear rules and only some adjustments yet to be made to the system. He said some advances are being made, citing the receipts collected at the logistics center regime came in at RD$409 million over the past three months, from 850 transactions.
Ramirez said from 2004-2016 the connectivity index of the Dominican Republic was 24.55, above the average for Latin America and the Caribbean. But he said that despite the advances, there is a long way to go to reach connectivity levels of Mexico, Colombia and Panama.
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Listin Diario
9 June 2017
