Mario Mendez, the economic editor of Hoy, asks, if the business community and the unions are against Law 28-01, just who is benefited by it? Law 28-01 creates wondrous conditions of tax exemptions, among other incentives, to lure businesses to the frontier provinces. The DR?s industrial association says that the law produces unfair trade conditions against the rest of the country. CONEP says that a balance should be reached to allow for the creation of jobs without displacing the existing jobs towards the Haitian border region. Elena Viyella de Paliza admitted that many companies are evaluating the feasibility of relocating their operations to the frontier regions. The head of the Dominican Federation of Employers told Hoy, ?It is one thing to create jobs ? this is correct and necessary ? but it is another to prejudice jobs that already exist.? Union representative Rafael Abreu said that the law will ?destabilize the existing jobs? and the head of the Internal Revenue department, Juan Hernandez, said that the law signifies a big mess for the tax collectors, since ?there are bunch of tricky people that are selling the advantages of this law to foreign investors and making a killing.?
The Dominican Association of Frontier Enterprises (ADEFRO), while supporting the tax reform package, definitely wants to avoid the annulment of Law 28-01, especially since it has already spawned 3,000 new jobs. The 750,000 inhabitants of the frontier are seeing foreign and local investment for the first time, according to Carole Gaudet, the spokesperson for the association. More than 140 businesses have applied for location in the provinces of the frontier and 40 are in operation.