Caribbean specialists meeting for the presentation of the Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. looked into corruption, lack of political will, and absence of trust between the two countries as factors for the tense situation between both countries in trade and social issues, as Mark Schneider, former assistant administrator for USAID’s Latin American and Caribbean
The specialists looked into the solutions that could serve as a catalyst for economic and social development on the premise that what is good for Haiti, is good for the Dominican Republic.
During the presentations, consultant David Lewis of Manchester Trade, advocated for Haiti and the Dominican Republic to organize trade relations between the DR and Haiti so as to lead to signing a bilateral free trade agreement in the near future. “The best way to fix this up is to set up the rule of law of a free trade agreement to actually get everything on the table, and then you implement it through all the institutionalities and procedures, and so on,” observed Lewis when presenting his views during the CSIS report rollout.
During the same event, Gabriel Verret, a former economic counselor to the President of Haiti, favored the signing of the FTA with the Dominican Republic. He said this should include sanitary and phytosanitary considerations, but would primarily open up both markets. “Just about anybody who produces anything wants to import it into the Dominican Republic, they could do it. And at year 10, Haiti will have to have reduced or removed its tariffs on such-and-such a thing. Those are things left to experts who negotiate free trade agreements. They know how to do this. You know, Ok, year five, year 10, year 15 and year 20,” he said during the meeting.
Verret explained that the best part, in addition to regularizing the issue of trade, would be that the FTA would be an incentive for investors to come and invest in Haiti. He forecast the zero tariffs on imports, for example, would increase the number of Dominican investors in Haiti.
Stephan Coles, co-owner of the Coles Group of companies and a leading businessman in Haiti, also favored the FTA between both countries. He made the point that Haiti is part of CARICOM and the Dominican Republic is part of CARIFORUM. “The Dominican Republic has bilateral agreements with most of the Caribbean countries, but it’s not part of CARICOM,” he explained. Furthermore he said that CARICOM countries import over US$42 billion a year. “It’s a huge market and they import from outside of CARICOM,” he said.
Coles added: “Companies in the Dominican Republic that go to invest in Haiti, assuming that this works and this is underway, will immediately have access to that market. And Dominican companies have the ability and the technical know-how to invest and to produce these goods.
“Secondly, Haiti has GSP, the Generalized System of Preferences, free access to the American market. I mean, the Dominican Republic does not have that now because the Dominican Republic is a developing nation. Haiti is a Least Developed Country. There are many ways to market Haiti as an investment destination; and not only for Dominican companies, but also for American companies as well. For any company in the world.”
27 March 2019