The Minister of Industry, Commerce and MSMEs (MIMC), Victor -Ito- Bisonó, reported this Sunday that the country temporarily suspends the flour export in order to guarantee the food sovereignty of Dominicans and avoid stockouts and instability in the prices of this product and its derivatives.
According to a press release, according to the monitoring carried out by the MICM, the Flour exports have increased by 70% between January-October 2022, compared to the same period in 2021, and although there is installed capacity to cover the needs of the local market and companies guarantee domestic consumption of flourthe government decided to establish a temporary restriction on the export of this nationally produced product, regardless of the market of export.
“It is the responsibility of the Government to articulate, inter-institutionally, actions that allow bringing peace of mind to the market and to the Dominican consumer. In this sense, we have spoken with the Minister of the Presidency, Joel Santos, in his capacity as president of the National Council for Sovereignty and Food and Nutrition Security (Conassan) instituted by Law 589-16 in order to coordinate the corresponding actions and it has been decided to suspend, for one month, the exports of flour to the world, this measure being reviewable in the medium term”, quotes a letter sent by Bisonó to the General Directorate of Customs.
Law 589-16, which creates the National System for Food and Nutrition Sovereignty and Security in the Dominican Republic, indicates that it is an obligation of the State to guarantee access to adequate and sufficient food, permanently. It also establishes among its lines of intervention, the establishment of mechanisms that ensure the stability of food availability and reduce the risks of price volatility due to speculative phenomena and abusive or distorting practices.
subsidies to flour
The Government subsidized during this year the production of flourthe first was carried out in March, where 3,000 million pesos were allocated to avoid increases in the prices of bread, pasta and other products based on flour for 45 days, a measure that was extended in May with another subsidy of 533 million pesos for the production of flour for 60 days to lower production costs and, indeed, to the final products.
