©Reuters. The Spain-Dominican Republic forum closes with an eye on future investments
Santo Domingo, Oct 27 (EFE).- The Spain-Dominican Republic Business Meeting closed its doors this Thursday in Santo Domingo, after three days of interventions and hundreds of contacts for future business in various sectors, with an eye especially in renewable energies, agricultural technologies and water and sanitation.
Today was the turn of a hundred scheduled business meetings, after the first presentations were held on Tuesday and the official opening of the meeting was held on Wednesday by the Dominican President, Luis Abinader, and the Spanish Secretary of Commerce and head of ICEX Spain, Xiana Méndez, who highlighted the possibilities that the Caribbean country presents, in terms of business.
The Spanish ambassador to the Dominican Republic, Antonio Pérez-Hernández, also considered that this country deserves to make “a strong political and economic investment” and assured that “foreign investors are very comfortable” here, as shown by the 68 projects currently in execution for 42 million euros (about 41.8 million dollars at current exchange rates)
In this regard, Abinader expressed the desire that his country be “Spain’s gateway to all of Latin America” and stated that “investment in the Dominican Republic is a safe bet,” as evidenced by the success of the vast majority of projects .
In a subsequent speech, the Dominican Minister of Finance, Jochi Vicente, also underlined the “good legal, economic and social stability environment for private investment in general and foreign investment in particular” that the country offers, which has led him to to be the main recipient of Spanish foreign direct investment (FDI) in Central America and the Caribbean.
For this reason, the aim is now to diversify investment to other areas and, thus, the Secretary of State for Trade referred to Spain as “a leading country in terms of agricultural technology with high quality standards and that offers innovative and constructive solutions to current problems” and highlighted its role in the use of water resources and innovation in the efficient use of water, while highlighting the importance of sustainability and renewable energy.
According to ambassador Pérez-Hernández, the meeting these days is “a first step” to draw the attention of companies to sectors that may be attractive for Spanish investment, in which “our companies have technologies and know-how recognized and in which the Dominican Republic offers very interesting prospects for development”.
Spain is the first trading partner of the European Union in the Dominican Republic and the fifth worldwide and, as highlighted by the Dominican Minister of Industry, Commerce and MSMEs, Víctor Bisonó, bilateral trade represents almost 785 million dollars so far of year.
He added that between 2010 and June 2022, the Dominican Republic received from Spain a flow of foreign direct investment of more than 2,000 million dollars, especially in the tourism, energy and real estate sectors.
This forum -organized by the Spanish Secretary of State for Commerce through ICEX- brought together some 40 Spanish companies and more than 120 local firms to discuss investment and cooperation opportunities.
Six Dominican ministers also participated (in addition to Vicente and Bisonó, the heads of Energy and Mines, Antonio Almonte; Economy, Planning and Development, Pavel Ernesto Isa; Agriculture, Limber Cruz, and Women, Mayra Jiménez) and former President Hipólito Mejia.
Officials from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the World Bank, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE), the Spanish Chamber of Commerce and the Employers’ Confederation of the Dominican Republic (Copardom) also took part. , among others.