2005 – Page 145

NutraCea, a California-based food supplement company, announced the launch of a project that would create a large central procuring and processing entity with its operations anchored in the DR for exportation of processed and finished products throughout the Caribbean and Latin America. Company president Bradley Edson and senior vice president Margie Adelman met with government …

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The Monetary Board, the Central Bank and the Superintendence of Banks were aware of Baninter’s real numbers of the assets and liabilities, and also approved the Banco de Progreso’s financial statements. This contradicts earlier statements claiming that these entities “discovered” a “parallel bank” only when they finally had to take over the ailing institutions. The …

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Feelers are going out to test the waters on a new tax proposal that would become part of the compensation package the government is asking for to supplant the loss of revenues once the exchange commission is removed, with the start of the free trade agreement with the United States. According to Diario Libre, its …

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The president of the Dominican Federation of Merchants (FDC) has said that the proposal that sets out to broaden the VAT tax base would be “too inflationary”. These proposals are being made in an attempt to lower the current 16% VAT to 14% and broaden the base. Ivan de Jesus Garcia also said that his …

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While this might go totally unnoticed, the current energy crisis is making a big dent in the fragile finances of small businesses. Small and medium-sized traders and people who offer services are particularly vulnerable, due to a lack of a reliable and reasonably priced energy supply. The worsening of the power situation over the past …

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The New York Daily News reports on the first Dominican casualty in Iraq. According to the newspaper, on June 28, the US army confirmed the death of Dominican-born Cpl. Ramona Valdez. Valdez, who was born in the Bronx, was one of six US military personnel – four of them women – killed in Iraq when …

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Senator Hernani Salazar gave testimony yesterday at the attorney general’s office and said that he did not know or have any ties to Quirino Paulino Castillo or Bladimir Garcia, the accused drug traffickers jailed and awaiting trial in New York. He also said that he knew nothing about the sale of the Colibri helicopter that …

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Former Police lieutenant Luis Ricardo Reyes Mendoza appeared before the Southern District Court of New York yesterday. A note from the prosecutor’s office says that the officer used his high position in the Customs Office to determine in a corrupt way if the Dominican police and the Drug Enforcement Administration of the US were following …

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The Dominican Republic is on the Foreign Policy magazine’s list of countries in real danger of becoming “failed nations.” In the Western Hemisphere, only Haiti and Colombia are on the list of 20 nations that Foreign Policy and the Peace Forum consider as being at risk of failure. According to these sources, unequal development is …

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For the very first time two Dominicans have been selected in the first round of the NBA draft. Charlie Villanueva, who played for Connecticut at the college level, was selected number seven by the Toronto Raptors. Francisco Garcia, who played for the Louisville Cardinals in the NCAA, went in the 23rd spot to the Sacramento …

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