Industrial performance ‘encouraging,’ but hurdles remain

Santo Domingo.- The president of the country’s biggest industriesassociation (AEIH) on Sunday said is encouraging that local manufacturing is amongthe sectors that boosted GDP in 2015, and expects it to halt thedeindustrialization of recent years.

Antonio Taveras noted however that there are still hurdlesand pending tasks for the private sector and the government to acceleratechange to spur continue industrial growth.

He said the fact that small and medium industries find itdifficult to access reasonable financing to improve their technology andcompete efficiently is a major stumbling block to industry, which he called thefundamental basis of national production.

Taveras said another weakness is the lack of market, whichdemanded a greater effort by the Dominican Republic Exports Investment Center (CEI-RD)and the Foreign Ministry, becoming diplomats to locate opportunities to developexports.