The Industrial Association of the Dominican Republic (AIRD)
is asking the government to place new players on the negotiating team that is
working on the Free Trade Agreement with the United States. Lisandro Macarrulla,
AIRD?s president, has suggested that prominent figures like Bernardo Vega,
Federico Cuello and Frederic Emam Zade participate in the negotiations.
Macarrulla told the press that the government should set politics aside and
appoint the best people to the negotiating team, especially since 80% of
Dominican trade is carried out with the United States. The industrial leader
told Fausto Rosario Adames of El Caribe that AIRD has no information on who
would do the negotiating; whether it would be a team from the Foreign Ministry
or from the Industry and Commerce Ministry. Macarrulla warned that after his
association participated in several rounds of talks related to the Central
American Free Trade Agreement, they realized that the negotiators from the
United States were very hard bargainers and quite aggressive.