SANTO DOMINGO.- The Dominican Free Zones Association (Adozona) said the Economic Association Agreement  signed by the country with the European Union "opens Europe’s doors to all free zone products, which will be able to enter that market tariff-free."

Adozona president Fernando Capellan praised the work carried out by the National Negotiations Trade Commission (CNNC), to successfully reach the agreement. He said it will allow diversifying the free zones’ export products, more than 90 percent of which are currently shipped to the United States.

He cited the case of textiles and footwear, and the fact that for those products the Dominican negotiating team managed to get more flexible rules-of-origin than in the Dr-Cafta, which will make production for the European market more competitive.

Adozona said the CNNC’s work managed a transcendental trade opening and at once protecting national productive sectors considered sensible, with prolonged terms in the lowering of duties.

With its 27 countries, the European Union’s population of 480 million has a nine billion euro economy and represents the second most important market for Dominican exports. It’s also the main source of direct foreign investment and cooperation for this country’s development.

Adozona’s 58 industrial parks and 600 companies export more than 4.4 billion dollars annually, and generate 135,000 direct jobs.

Foreign minister Carlos Morales said Dominican Republic and other Caribbean region countries concluded the negotiations for the Economic Association Agreement (AAE) with the European Union, which among other advantages will provide a tariff-free access to a market of more than 480 million consumers. He said after three years of talks the AAE is a fact and for that reason will take effect from January 1, as scheduled.

The bloc of Caribbean region was first of the ACP (Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific) nations to conclude the negotiations in the trade agreement with the 27 European countries. He said bananas, rum, tobacco, rice and sugar will enter Europe without tariffs.

Morales said the agreement is first to replace intellectual property with the promotion of innovation and in which a group of developed countries totally liberalizes the import of goods. "It’s the first genuinely asymmetric agreement, allowing the exclusion from free trade or to liberalize during up to 25 years the sensible imports product in the Caribbean, it’s the first in allowing the use of raw material from anywhere."