Dominican milk producers traveled to Geneva, for negotiations to change the agriculture protocol signed by the Dominican Republic under the GATT. The revision seeks to establish a maximum quota of 28,000 metric tonnes for imports under the present 20% import duty and a maximum of 102 percent for imports in excess of that figure.
The delegation is being led by Osmar Benítez, advisor to the Minister of Agriculture and the executive vice president of the Junta Agroempresarial Dominicana, and Dr Otto González, executive director of the Consejo Nacional de Fomento Lechero. Other members are Arturo Biaggi, president of the Asociación de Productores de Leche; Cesareo Contreras for the Asociación de Agricultores y Hacendados and Marcelino Vargas, for the Patronato Nacional de Ganaderos.
The technical rectification proposal has been submitted by the Dominican government for revision, discussion and negotiations to the United States (the D.R.’s principal trade partner), New Zealand (one of the country’s principal milk suppliers) and Canada, a country with which the D.R. maintains extensive trade and tourism relations. These three countries, together with the European Union, have opposed the initial Dominican proposal. The Dominican negotiators say that the United States, New Zealand and Canada later gave their approval, but the principal supplier of milk to the Dominican Republic, Holland, continues to object.