Dominican agro sector: Time to renegotiate DR-CAFTA free trade deal

Santo Domingo.- Dominican Republic’s agro producers(Confenagro) on Thursday said the DR-CAFTA free trade deal must be reviewed andevaluated, as stipulated in executive order 260-16 issued Sept. 17.

The measure, which creates a high-level commission toevaluate and possibly renegotiate the trade agreement among the US, CentralAmerica and the Dominican Republic would in their view culminates a longprocess of struggle.

Confenagro president Eric Rivero on Wednesday said without thenational economy’s sensitive sectors such as rice, milk, chicken, pork, beans,onions and garlic, "it would be impossible to imagine the productiveapparatus of farming, while making our country vulnerable to international crises."

He said he expects the measure starts a process, "inwhich our country can have a second chance to establish measures to protectdomestic production under the DR-CAFTA and the other trade agreements signed bythe Dominican Republic.”

"This decree is the consolidation of a long process ofstruggle, which has raised the need to protect a set of productive sectors,which are the backbone of our food sovereignty, and therefore employment andstability in the country," Rivero said in a press conference,.

He said to renegotiate an agreement doesn’t imply any tradeor diplomatic rupture, but to correct imperfections and anomalies in the negotiationprocess instead.