1996 – Page 87

Haitian President, Rene García Preval, met the leading Dominican politicians, including the three presidential candidates and gave his views on how the two countries can work together to their mutual benefit. The candidates agreed in their support of the initiatives by both governments to create bilateral plans for commerce, ecological protection, migration and cultural exchange. …

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José Francisco Peña Gómez and Leonel Fernández, presidential candidates of the PRD and the PLD, appear almost tied at 38.8% and 38.1%, according to the latest poll by the Global Strategy Group. The survey has been contracted by the PLD and was carried out from 1-7 March interviewing 1,300 potential voters. Jacinto Peynado, presidential candidate …

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The Governor of the Central Bank, Hector Valdez Albizu, told members of the American Chamber of Commerce that the outlook for the Dominican economy chiefly hinges on the country’s ability to promote policies conducive to macroeconomic stability, and the flexibility of local entrepreneurs to adapt to the requirements of an increasingly competitive international business environment. …

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A report on the state of the Dominican economy, prepared by the IMF, confirms that the country’s nominal GNP grew by 4.8 percent in 1995 providing a per capita income of US$1,693. Also, the nation’s current account balance exceeded the US$51.2 million budgeted, and the balance of payments registered a surplus of over US$90 million, …

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The Central Bank reports that the country’s foreign reserves amounted to US$532.7 million in February, an increase of 0.8 percent over December’s balance. It also announced that reserves totaled some US$384.6 in 1994, and that the balance in 1995 exceeded the beginning-of-year forecast by more than US$100 million. The report indicates that the money supply …

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The Dominican representative to the Lomé IV Convention, Angel Lockward, warns that a change in the present EU banana marketing system will adversely affect the country’s interests in Europe. The United States, supported by Mexico and other Latin American nations, is currently exerting strong pressure on the Europeans to free banana imports to the EU. …

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The daily newspaper Hoy reports that Dole Dominicana, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dole Fresh Fruit International, Inc., has started relocating its Dominican operations to Costa Rica and Honduras after registering cumulative losses in the region of US$30 million for the last two years due to a downturn in production levels. According to the paper, the …

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The president of the Consejo Nacional de la Empresa Privada (CONEP), José Manuel Paliza, told the news media that tariff considerations do not constitute the main source of problems standing in the way of smoother trade relations between the two nations which share the island of Hispaniola. Instead, he thinks that bureaucratic impediments on both …

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Speaking at a meeting of the Asociación Dominicana de Inversión Extranjera (ASIEX), José Francisco Peña Gómez, the presidential candidate of the Partido Revolutionario and a broad coalition of smaller parties, said that the country should sign the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency Convention (MIGA). MIGA, a World Bank affiliate, establishes rules of arbitration to settle disputes …

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The executive vice-president of the Junta Agroempresarial Dominicana, Osmar Benítez, attributes the weak position of Dominican agriculture to the government’s failure to draft a timely proposal for WTO consideration as did most countries, including the United States and the European Union. He says that JAD was the only institution that raised the alarm about the …

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