Hochi Vega, spokesman for the Federation of Idustrial
Associations (FAI), said that the Dominican Republic would have to abandon the
rights to produce low-cost generic medicines using expired US patents under
World Trade Organization agreements if it docks to the Central American Trade
Agreement. He said Dominican legislation Law 20-00 authorizes local
manufacturers to produce the generic medicines, which result in as much as 500%
reductions to the cost of medicines sold to the Dominican people. The Mej?a
administration, however, in its courting of the US and the free trade agreement,
has ignored the provisions in the law in favor of the multinational
pharmaceutical industry.
Vega told Hoy newspaper that the global trend is to reduce intellectual property
protection of patents. But, he said, with this treaty the US also has plans to
oblige the DR to extend patent protection to 30 years, up from 20 years at
present. He said the CAFTA agreement also would eliminate the mandatory
licensing of expired patents, despite this being in compliance with WTO and
legal in the Dominican Republic.
Ignacio M?ndez, another spokesman for FAI, told Hoy newspaper that as things are
going, it looks like the DR is not negotiating a free trade agreement with the
US, but simply signing whatever it is offered. As reported in the newspaper,
during the process the Dominican Republic has seemed misguided. M?ndez said that
if the country accepts what the US wants, there will immediately be a FTA
because nothing will have been negotiated. M?ndez and Vega agree that the
country would have mortgaged its future in exchange for keeping the free trade
zone jobs.
M?ndez said that he does not understand why, if Chile spent 11 years discussing
a bilateral agreement with the US, the Dominican Republic is being forced to
accept one in four months.
M?ndez also said that the DR had previously been the leader of the Central
American and Caribbean negotiating team, up until the FTAA meeting held in
Panama one year ago, at which time the country did an about-face in its
negotiating strategy and began to accept any terms the US wanted, thus
dismantling all the work that had been accomplished in trade negotiations to
that point.