2007 – Page 117

Customs director Miguel Coco says that the Customs Department (DGA) will not prosecute small business operators suspected of selling fake designer merchandise. As reported in El Dia, he said that DGA policy is “to go after the millions and then the pennies.” He said their focus is on the freight containers, not small stores. He …

Read more…

Santo Domingo’s UASD University has opened a day care center on campus that will provide students who are mothers with the option of continuing their studies while leaving their children in safe hands. The center cost RD$12 million and was inaugurated in May. The center has a capacity for 200 children between the ages of …

Read more…

The National Aquarium is being closed temporarily in order to repair the damage caused by Hurricane Dean. The aquarium will be closed for 15 days and Aquarium director Enrique Pugibet says that the repairs will cost RD$2 million. The aquarium suffered some structural damage, but Pugibet said that the aquarium’s emergency plan worked and that …

Read more…

Investment opportunities valued at US$2 billion are awaiting the implementation of the Renewable Energy Investment and Incentives law, which is being prepared by the National Commission of Energy (CNE). Alternative energy projects aimed at providing an additional 1,600 MW of energy are planned for the DR. Aristides Fernandez Zucco, president of the National Energy Council, …

Read more…

International Monetary Fund country resident representative Erik C. Offerdal has said that the short term challenge for the DR is to maintain fiscal discipline in order to help reduce the burden that the public debt has on the economy, so as to reduce external vulnerabilities. Offerdal added that, as determined in the IMF Stand-by Arrangement …

Read more…

Lisandro Macarrulla, president of the National Council for Private Business (CONEP) and Rafael Menicucci, chief executive of Cerveceria Nacional Dominicana that brews Presidente beer, are both in favor of the country signing an agreement with the IMF once the current Stand-by arrangement comes to an end in January 2008. Both businessmen believe that the IMF’s …

Read more…

The case of the state against the former owners and managers of the Banco Intercontinental (Baninter) is coming to an end. For the public to follow, Channels 7 (Antena Latina) and 21 will be transmitting the court conclusions of the leading bank collapse that shook the Dominican economy in 2003. Journalist Alicia Ortega will be …

Read more…

Supreme Court President Jorge Subero Isa says that corruption is just as bad as drug trafficking, adding that people who are carrying out public functions should not be getting rich. He says that any public official who wants to make money should find another job. Subero says that corruption is not endemic to the DR …

Read more…

Samuel Rosario a.k.a. “Luis Quita Tenis” was sentenced to seven years in jail after being found guilty of smuggling 10.84 grams of cocaine in September 2006. “Quita Tenis” will be sent to La Victoria prison and has been order to pay a fine of RD$50,000. Prosecutors had originally asked for 20 years.

Dominican runner Felix Sanchez has won the silver at the 400 meters hurdles finals of the Track World Championships in Osaka, Japan. Sanchez’s win seems to indicate that the runner is almost fully recovered from the injury that kept him sidelined for most of 2006. In Sanchez’s last international competitions, at this year’s Pan American …

Read more…