SANTO DOMINGO. - Companies from Brazil want to invest more than 100 million dollars to produce ethanol for local consumption and export to the United States. Thus it informed to the Industry and Commerce Ministry’s director for Non-Conventional Energy, Salvador Rivas and the ex-Dominican basketball player Jose Vargas, in visit to Sports vice minister Soterio Ramirez

Vargas is now a prosperous businessman in Brazil and represents the company Camen and Brazil’s Colorado Group, bound to the families traditionally related to the cane production  sugar and ethanol in that nation. He said he’s interested in bringing these groups from Brazil here because they would contribute much to the national economy.

Rivas said that those companies want enter the business of ethanol in the country, for which they project making investments that exceed 100 million dollars to produce that fuel for local consumption and export to the U.S. He said the projects are part of the Government’s plans to develop an agribusiness to replace fossil fuels with sugar cane for export and obtain the country’s energy independence.