President Luis Abinader’s trip to Paris on 22 March 2026 to attend the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Global Anti-Corruption and Integrity Forum, more than a diplomatic mission, is a high-stakes economic mission. The Dominican Republic is leveraging its improved reputation to gain the technical power needed to audit multinational mining giants, a significant win for national sovereignty and the treasury. The move is a step forward to enable the Dominican Republic to acquire the forensic accounting tools of the developed world to protect its natural resources.
One of the goals of the visit of President Luis Abinader to France for work sessions with the OECD is to align Dominican fiscal policies with international standards, specifically targeting tax transparency in the mining and extractive sectors. The Abinader administration has a pro-mining track record and has been authorizing new exploration permits and studies for exploitation of major known gold deposits. New actions in Paris are intended to secure for the country a greater share of the mining revenues generated by the exploitations, addressing the “Triple Threat to Mining Leakage” (Mispricing, Profit Shifting, and Lack of Transparency) with actions to move forward the technical adoption of the OECD-IGF (Intergovernmental Forum on Mining) standards in the Dominican Republic.
The OECD Global Anti-Corruption & Integrity Forum (23–27 March 2026) and the OECD–IGF (Intergovernmental Forum on Mining) joint initiatives are central to the President’s current visit.
While the general headlines focus on the broader OECD agreement, mining and extractive sectors are part of the Memorandum of Understanding that is grounded in three specific pillars of the 2026 OECD agenda for developing, resource-rich nations like the Dominican Republic.
The OECD–IGF “BEPS in Mining” Program
The OECD and the IISD (International Institute for Sustainable Development) formalized a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in March 2026 specifically to help developing countries address Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) in the mining sector. This program targets “mispricing” of minerals, a major concern for the DR’s gold and ferronickel exports, to ensure tax revenues stay within the host country.
The connection is with the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining (IGF), an independent body that collaborates closely with the OECD, even when their major annual event is not the same meeting President Abinader is attending in Paris on 24 March 2026.
President Abinader is at the OECD Global Anti-Corruption & Integrity Forum taking place 23-27 March 2026.
• The focus: Public procurement, anti-fraud measures, and “The Integrity Advantage” for economic competitiveness.
• The mining connection: During this specific week (on 24 March), the OECD presented its Anti-Corruption and Integrity Outlook 2026. This report specifically identifies the extractive sector (mining) as one of the highest-risk areas for global corruption and tax leakage.
• The agreement: The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in Paris includes technical support for Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS), a program run jointly by the OECD and the IGF to help countries like the DR ensure mining companies pay their fair share of taxes locally.
The IGF Annual General Meeting (AGM)
The “OECD–IGF” meeting will follow and is a separate event. The next 22nd IGF AGM is scheduled for 12–16 October 2026 in Geneva, Switzerland.
Why it matters
While the President is not attending a “Mining Forum” per se, the tax transparency in mining is a primary “deliverable” of the OECD agreement he is signing. On 4 March 2026, the OECD and the IISD (which hosts the IGF) formalised a specific partnership to help developing nations with the “BEPS in Mining” program.
Abinader’s presence in Paris today is the formal “buy-in” for the Dominican Republic to use these OECD-IGF tools to audit and regulate the fiscal behavior of large-scale mining operations in the DR.
In late 2025 and early 2026, the OECD released updates to its Model Tax Convention, introducing new provisions specifically for the taxation of natural resource extraction. These rules were designed to reinforce “source-country” rights, meaning countries like the DR have more leverage to tax income where the minerals are physically extracted, rather than where the multinational is headquartered.
Anti-Corruption outlook 2026
The Anti-Corruption and Integrity Outlook 2026, which President Abinader is addressing on 24 March 2026 in Paris, explicitly identifies public procurement and extractive industries as high-risk zones for corruption. The agreement he is signing is the mechanism by which the DR adopts the OECD’s “Public Integrity Indicators” to monitor these specific sectors.
This means the Abinader administration is not just “joining a club,” but is adopting a technical toolkit designed to prevent multinational mining firms from shifting profits offshore, a topic that has been a point of historical contention in the Dominican Republic (e.g., the Barrick Gold contract renegotiations).
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Caribbean News Global
24 March 2026