President Danilo Medina left at noon, 14 January 2020 for Guatemala City, where he participated in the inauguration of President-elect Alejandro Giammattei. Medina left on a private flight from San Isidro Air Base. He traveled with Foreign Relations Minister Miguel Vargas, Administrative Minister José Ramón Peralta, Interior & Police Minister José Ramón Fadul, Banco de Reservas administrator Simón Lizardo Mézquita, and his staff. He returned on a private flight arriving to San Isidro Air Base shortly before midnight on the same day.
63-year old Giammattei is a medical doctor who was elected in November 2019. He visited President Medina at the Presidential Palace to invite him to the inauguration. Giammattei had sought to be elected in the presidential elections of 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019. In the 2019 elections, he triumphed by reaching 1,907,801 votes in the second round (57.95%), proclaiming himself president-elect of Guatemala.
The Dominican Republic is part of the Central American trade and economic block of nations, the Central American Integration System (SICA), and the Central American Trade Agreement.
Guatemalan exports to the Dominican Republic as of January 2019, according to data from the Center for Export and Investment of the Dominican Republic (CEI-RD), amounted to US$13,206,966.02. The Dominican Republic exports US$1,277,334.50 to Guatemala and thus has a trade deficit of around US$11 million.
In Guatemala, President Medina held a bilateral meeting with Giammattei to discuss customs integration. The Presidency reports, Medina held bilateral meetings with President Juan Orlando Hernández of Honduras, and the Secretary General of the Central American Integration System (SICA), Vinicio Cerezo. With Hernandez he would witness the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding and a cooperation agreement on housing and the implementation of dams between the Dominican Republic and Honduras.
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Presidencia
Presidencia
15 January 2020