The president of the Dominican Federation of Merchants, Iván de Jesús García, assured that, although the inflation for 2021 reported by the Central Bank was 8.5 percent, the prices of food consumed daily by the poorest people in the country, increased by 15%.
García said that for the middle class, the inflationary levels of their food basket ranged between 25 and 30 percent.
He explained that for people who are located in the upper middle class, the prices of their daily food, on average, had an increase of 60 to 70%.
Interviewed by Héctor Herrera Cabral in the D’AGENDA program that is broadcast every Sunday by Telesistema channel 11 and TV Quisqueya for the United States, the commercial leader clarified that the agricultural items produced in the country did not have inflationary effects.
García specified that when the Central Bank reports the result of the Consumer Price Index, it refers to a very broad basket of products, not specifically to the food goods that the population consumes daily.
“The Central Bank reports 8.5%, but when you take out what the poorest consume within the basket, they are not going to feel an inflation of 8.5 percent, that is not true, for the poorest we are talking about an inflation of 15%, on average, of what they use, while the level of inflation for the middle class ranges between 25 to 30 percent, and the upper middle class, easily, has 60 or 70% of inflation in the food products they consume,” he reiterated.
He added that there are industrialized products, such as oil, whose prices have increased between 80 to 100 percent, but with farm products that has not happened.
“When journalists interview people in the streets, people rightly complain, because when they go to buy a gallon of oil that used to cost 350 pesos and now it costs 600 pesos, they don’t have to shout, they have to despair,” Ivan Garcia sentenced.
Other products that have increased considerably are ketchup, mayonnaise, sausages, pica pica, which have doubled their prices, according to the president of the Dominican Federation of Merchants.
“Then, when the prices of these industrialized products double, that is why we say that people are screaming wherever they want, although the products of the field are stable, but the rice does not cook itself, you have to add oil, seasoning, and the prices of these products practically doubled”, he insisted.
Other products, non-food, but of great consumption in homes such as disinfectants, cleaning products, first rose 30 percent, then 15, and in December they rose 15% more.
“So when you start to add up, 30, 20, 15, we are talking about an increase that exceeds 50 percent, and the same thing happens with bath soap that the package of two pastes cost 80 pesos and now it costs 150 pesos, there there was an increase of almost 100 percent,” Garcia complained.
He admitted that there are owners of colmados that apply price increases well above what corresponds, and in this sense he informed that, together with Proconsumidor, they will initiate a nationwide campaign to raise awareness among all micro and small colmaderos, to explain as are the percentages that must be calculated when you buy an item.
President of the Dominican Federation of Merchants criticizes new taxes and excise duties in the middle of the inflationary process
The engineer Iván García criticized that some government agencies and mayors, such as the National District, are trying to apply new taxes and duties in the midst of the inflationary process that the country is experiencing, and most of the nations of the world.
The president of the Dominican Federation of Merchants recalled that, due to the economic situation that the country and the world are going through, President Luis Abinader, rightly, decided to suspend the tax reform proposal that was intended to be implemented.
“When they started talking about increasing excise taxes, the municipal taxes of the National District, we were surprised because we are still in a pandemic, we are in difficult situations and, although commercial sectors such as food and medicine have benefited from the increase of sales, and the economy and jobs have recovered, but last year trade still bled to benefit from the tax amnesty”, he clarified.
He called for restraint, since it cannot be forcing so much, because the situation is not ready to continue draining trade with so many tax burdens, and, therefore, it must be paralyzed for a while.
Regarding the intentions of the General Directorate of Internal Taxes to tax the use of the Netflix platform, the business leader recalled that the tax is paid by the final consumer.
“The first thing is that the one who pays the taxes, in the end, is the consumer, but the invoices are generated in the United States, in the DGII they are saying that they are going to collect the taxes where the invoicing is generated, so how are they going? to collect those taxes, because they do not have jurisdiction in the United States, therefore, the only way is to look for an internal solution that I do not know how they are going to find, so that whoever is paying between seven and ten dollars for the service of Netflix, then you have to pay 28%, “explained Iván García.
The commercial leader also protested about another tax applied to merchants, which is that of solid waste, which most of the members of the Federation that he presides over will have to pay between 200,000 and 300,000 pesos a year, and that is added to other liens and taxes currently paid.
He says that Dominican remittances abroad were a lifeline for the economy in the years 2020-2021
For the president of the Dominican Federation of Merchants Iván de Jesús García, the lifeline of the economy in the years 2020, 2021, was the Dominicans residing abroad, due to the extraordinary remittances they sent to their relatives.
“In 2021 and 2020, the stellar role was played by the absent Dominicans, that is, the Dominican diaspora that lives in the United States and Europe, because with the aid that the governments of those nations gave them, they turned and sent twice as much. the amount of money they sent to their relatives”, highlighted the leader of the commerce sector.
He insisted that the growth of remittances from five thousand to ten billion dollars was the lifeline for the Dominican people, and therefore a special tribute must be paid to those compatriots who live abroad, because they have been the true protagonists in the two years of economic crisis generated by the coronavirus pandemic.
“As a sector, we directly feel these remittances, because a significant percentage went for food, and another considerable percentage went to the construction sector, because they energized that sector after being closed for almost three months, when those remittances began to arrive, to which Five thousand dollars came in, he sent four thousand to the country so they could repair his little house, or build a new one,” he detailed.
Iván García said that this is the reason for the significant rebound experienced by the construction sector, and the hardware line because it supplies materials to the aforementioned sector.
In another order, the president of the Dominican Federation of Merchants considered that the measures adopted by the Central Bank to increase 200 points of its monetary policy rate will not be enough to reverse the inflation that the Dominican economy is experiencing, because it has a high imported component.
Iván García also said that he supports the willingness of President Luis Abinader to eliminate the restrictive measures that were implemented to face the coronavirus pandemic.
