Santo Domingo.- The deadline for productive sectors to achieve compliance with the legal requirement to hire foreign manpower expires Friday, which has caused concern among businesses of all calibers.

The regulation will raise a producer’s cost per foreigner by nearly RD$20,000, including passport, visa, medical certificate and a clean record affidavit, even if in most cases they’re hired for just one or two weeks.

The new migratory regulation discontinued the Immigration Agency’s RD$500 fee and the RD$1,200 paid when the worker was contracted.

The farm producers will meet with Immigration director Jose Ricardo Taveras 9am Thursday, to deal with the start of the regulation’s implementation on June 1, when violators face fines as high as RD$300,000.

In that regard the president of the country’s top companies grouped in COPARDOM, quoted by diariolibre.com, said they oppose the fines, noting the difficulties to legalize Haitians, especially those who live in the country and after the earthquake collapsed Haiti’s documentation building.

Jaime González said what was done was to put a date to start the work the first of June, because Immigration has now way of responding to the proposals from the businesses, such as the protocol to make the workers’ legalization feasible.