SANTO DOMINGO.- The presidents of two of the country’s business groups are on opposite sides of the controversial purchase by the government of the shares of the company Shell in the Dominican Refinery (Refidomsa).

While the president of the young businesspersons grouped in Anje defended the fuel market’s liberalization to spur competition, with the private sector and not the government purchasing the Refinery, the head of the country’s largest gasoline retailers group favors it.

Jose Santos said they agree with former National Business Council (Conep) president Elena Viyella, who’s also against the State buying the company Shell’s shares in the Refinery.

But gasoline retailers (Anadegas) president Juan Ignacio Espaillat defended the Government’s tight to control the Refinery, though not to operate it, to prevent special interest groups from “kidnapping” the fuel business. “In fuels there’s never free trade, that’s an activity where the oligopolies become the market’s owners and sack the population."