The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has expressed in a report delivered to Dominican monetary authorities its opposition to high salary increases, because this will affect the country’s competitiveness. The report points out that the salary increases made in 1995 had an adverse effect on the country’s public finance and its external competition. The IMF thinks that market deregulation, guarantees of competition, and the freeing of domestic petroleum derivatives prices are necessary to increase the country’s competitiveness.