Eduardo González
The President of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, assured yesterday that the economic recovery of his country after the crisis generated by the pandemic “is above the Latin American average and, most probably, the world average” and that his government offers legal security, incentives and tax exemptions to attract foreign investments.
The Dominican President made these statements during two events held at the Casa de América headquarters in Madrid on the occasion of his official trip to Spain, prior to his participation in the Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government, which will take place between today and tomorrow in Andorra.
“Regarding the recovery, I am very optimistic”, said Abinader during his speech at the EFE Tribune – Casa de América, where he was interviewed by the president of the EFE Agency, Gabriela Cañas. The recovery of the Caribbean country, he assured, is expected to be “above the average of Latin America and, most probably, above the world average”. “The only sector that, for external reasons, is not yet at the pre-COVID level is tourism, which is normal, but I am very optimistic, things are gradually changing and I expect total normality at the end of this year”, he added.
In this regard, at an event organized immediately beforehand by the Consejo Empresarial Alianza por Iberoamérica (CEAPI) and the Chamber of Commerce of the Dominican Republic in Spain., with the support of Casa de América, the president assured that the Dominican Republic is “among the ten safest destinations for travel in the world” and estimated that by the end of the year the country could receive more than four million tourists. During his stay in Madrid, Abinader – a tourism entrepreneur who won the August 2020 elections – visited the headquarters of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), where he was received by its secretary general, Zurab Pololikashvili.
At the same CEAPI meeting, Luis Abinader assured that his country has a “solid” legal and incentive scheme to attract foreign investments, to which legal security and tax exemptions are offered, and assured that Spain is “one of the main commercial and investment partners with the Caribbean economy” and “it has always been a country that has taken advantage of the investment opportunities and strategic advantages in our country”.
The president also explained the investment opportunities offered by the infrastructure of a country that already has eight airports, twelve cargo ports and three cruise ports, and reported that the main infrastructure projects in his country are the expansion of the port of Manzanillo, the highway between the regions of Amber and Puerto Plata and the tourist development of the province of Pedernales. At least 32 national and international companies have shown interest in these projects through a “transparent” bidding plan, he added. In addition, he said, the Dominican Republic has made a clear and firm commitment to renewable energies and offers an “attractive environment” for investment in the commercial and real estate sectors.
Vaccines
In the EFE Tribune, the Dominican president was very critical of the lack of “solidarity” shown by the more developed countries with regard to the COVID-19 vaccines. “We understand that each country wants to vaccinate its people first,” but other measures could have been taken, such as “the ones we requested in December so that we could have access to the patents and produce our vaccines in the excellent laboratories we have in our Latin American countries”, he said. “We are not asking for the vaccines to be donated to us, we are acquiring them (from India, through AstraZeneca, and from China, through Sinovac)”, he warned. “We simply do not want them to remove from the list the vaccines that we had already contracted”, a matter in which, he assured, “we have felt helpless” by the policies of the US and the EU.
Luis Abinader was received yesterday in Madrid by the King and by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez (with whom he discussed issues such as vaccination, recovery after the pandemic and the promotion of Spanish investment in other sectors beyond tourism, according to Moncloa), and was entertained by Philip VI, together with the President of Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei, with a dinner in his honor at the Royal Palace of El Pardo. The Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Andorra make up the current troika of the Ibero-American Summit due to their status as hosts of the previous (Guatemala, in 2018), the current (Andorra) and the next edition of the Summit (Dominican Republic in 2022).
During his official visit to Spain, Abinader met on Sunday with former Presidents of Government José María Aznar and Felipe González and held a meeting with representatives of the large Dominican community residing in Spain. He also attended the signing of a memorandum of understanding for bilateral consultations between the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Dominican Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which will allow institutionalizing bilateral political contacts and systematize the follow-up of matters of common interest.
