Economist Jaime Aristy Escuder considered that President Luis Abinader’s proposal to reduce to zero the tariffs applied to various products of the basic basket could have a negative impact on the national industry.
He explained that the president’s announcement in his speech only refers to finished products, leaving out the supplies that national producers need, “which would be producing a negative effective protection.”
He recommended to the head of state to include the inputs to prevent this phenomenon from occurring.
“It seems to me that this was not reviewed by the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Development, because they know well the disastrous meaning that negative effective protection has,” he said.
Aristy Escuder participated together with fellow economist Diego Sosa, in a panel broadcast on CDN channel 37, led by Nelson Rodríguez, director of elCaribe, and communicators Julissa Céspedes and Katherine Hernández, in which they analyzed the impact of the measures announced to the nation by the president through a speech.
Regarding fuels, Aristy Escuder said that although President Abinader spoke of keeping the internal prices of hydrocarbons unchanged for four months, he should think about maintaining the subsidy for a year, due to the uncertainty of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
He pointed out that President Luis Abinader did not mention the issue of electricity in his speech.
He criticized that the state, for having put out to tender late the purchase of coal for the Punta Catalina thermoelectric plant, will now have to buy this fuel at a price higher than 400 dollars per ton.
People must sacrifice
Diego Sosa, who participated from Hamburg, Germany, noted that the president spoke of subsidies, but at no time did he refer to the sacrifice that people must make.
He pointed out that in times as difficult as the one the world is currently experiencing, people must change their habits and become more involved in the crisis.
“In Germany, fuel prices have reached levels never seen before and are going to continue to rise. That is why I say that in the Dominican Republic the population has to get involved, because the situation is going to be very hard, even if there are subsidies,” said Sosa.
Similarly, he considered that reducing tariffs on products of the basic basket to zero is a measure that must be well weighed.
reactions
The executive vice president of the National Council of Private Enterprise (Conep), César Dargam, described President Luis Abinader’s speech as positive, to mitigate the effects of the impact of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
“Faced with the international crisis, the President of the Republic, Luis Abinader, has called for national unity that must be supported by all Dominicans,” Dargam said through his Twitter account.
He explained that as Abinader said, this is a time of common efforts and purposes, solidarity, and protecting the most vulnerable.
Meanwhile, the leader of the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM), Ramón Alburquerque, criticized the speech. “We listen with their subsidies for fuel, raw materials, transportation and food. Only the Government is sacrificed. That lowers the excessive margins to the fuel business”.
PLD says Abinader did not motivate the production
The Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) affirmed that President Luis Abinader in his speech forgot the necessary measures to increase production and that, on the contrary, he announced measures that encourage imports, when the correct thing would have been to shield the country from the impact of the world crisis.
The Secretary of Agricultural Affairs of the PLD, Adriano Sánchez Roa, indicated on behalf of his organization that “expanding sales of INESPRE and food from the Economic Kitchens, at a time when local production has decreased and freeing tariffs, is a clear vision of preferring imports instead of production”
According to the opposition party, 0 tariffs will apply to products harvested abroad, while in the country the Ministry of Agriculture and the Dominican Agrarian Institute maintain poor support in the preparation of land, supply of seeds and planting materials. certificates, hundreds of specialist technicians canceled and reduction of credit to agricultural producers.
Sánchez Roa explained that current production costs are extremely high.
