According to news reports, leading Dominican coffee manufacturer Industrias Banilejas (Induban), producer of Cafe Santo Domingo, has exported 14 freight containers of coffee to Russia in the past 12 months. Company president Rafael Perello said that this totals US$1 million in export value. “It started with some people who came as tourists, visited us and have been buying Dominican coffee,” he said.
Perello made the comments during a press visit to his Cafe Santo Domingo stand at Agora Mall when President Danilo Medina visited after the formal inaugural ceremony of the mall on Wednesday, 24 October.
Perello says he has received requests to install other coffee stores similar to the one set up at Agora Mall. Perello said he also plans to open a Coffee University to train people to work in the industry.
President Medina offered the government’s support to this project and for Dominicans who want to work. He said that tourists needed to be taken to visit coffee farms so they can see how it is produced, as reported in Listin Diario.
President Medina stressed that Russia is now one of the country’s main markets, with the greatest potential for growth. He said that he is aware that the planes that bring Russian tourists could return laden with Dominican vegetables. He said that a phyto-sanitary laboratory is being installed for processing these exports.
Rafael Perello said that the country’s largest Robusta Coffee plantation is planned for the eastern province of Hato Mayor.