During the 76th session of the UN General Assembly, chaired by the Dominican Republic on March 24, Ambassador Jose Blanco voted for the country to sign the resolution “Humanitarian consequences of the aggression against Ukraine,” a document with which the participants demanded the “immediate cessation of hostilities by Russia, as well as any attack against the Ukrainian population or civilian infrastructure”.
The official position of the Dominican Republic since the Russian military incursion in Ukraine territory from the start of the invasion on 24 February 2022 has been a “strong call” for Russia to withdraw its troops and return to the negotiating table.
As reported in Diario Libre, nevertheless, the Dominican Republic, has remained lukewarm in the sanctions against a country that provides more than 20% of the European tourists it received each year. In 2021 alone, the country received 3.6 million tourists of which 873,901 came from Europe. Those coming from Russia were 183,700.
Diario Libre explains that the main sanctions imposed against Russia came from the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada, which decided to exclude Russian banks from the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) financial system. This system allows payments between banks in most countries.
As a result of this decision, the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic organized an event to analyze and guide financial entities operating in the country on how to proceed in the new scenario and to warn them about the possibilities of a cyberattack, but no specific forthcoming actions have been made public.
In addition to tourism, there are commercial interests between the Dominican Republic and Russia. The trade profile between the Dominican Republic and Russia, prepared by the Ministry of Industry & Commerce in 2019, shows a fivefold increase in trade between the two countries of more than 40% between 2013 and 2017. The Abinader administration named Hans Dannenberg Castellanos to Russia and this resulted in talks that had opened Dominican skies for hundreds of new flights from new cities in Russia with innumerous opportunities opened for more tourism and trade. All this is now at a standstill. Dannenberg Castellanos is now in talks to open new routes with neighboring Central Asian countries to reroute trade and tourism.
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Diario Libre
28 March 2022