Santo Domingo .- The humanitarian relief efforts in Haiti gave a boost to the Dominican tourism industry was just beginning to recover from the losses suffered by global financial crisis. After the earthquake that destroyed the Haitian capital on 12 January, "we had filled all hotels in Santo Domingo," said Haydee Kuret, president of the Dominican Association of Hoteliers (Asonahores).

Santo Domingo became the main bridge of assistance for the victims after the earthquake of January 12 in Haiti. The hotel occupation of the Dominican capital increased 18% during the first quarter of 2010 compared to same period last year. Kuret hoped that this year the tourism, the main source of foreign exchange, achieved after a rebound in 2010 the sector hotels, restaurants and bars recorded a fall of 3.5% due to a decrease of 4.4% occupation of more than 64 000 hotel rooms across the country.

Authorities have not yet evaluated the economic impact of the flow of humanitarian aid to Haiti through the Dominican Republic, but the Central Bank revealed that the arrival of travelers from abroad increased in the period by 4.2%. Aerodom The company, which manages the two airports in Santo Domingo and four others in different parts of the country, explained that after the earthquake the activities of both terminals saw a pickup. La Isabela International Airport, from where he flew many of the members of the international humanitarian community in Haiti, increased 43.42% daily operations of 76-109 flights, according to figures provided by Aerodom.

A spokesman for the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic only airline with regular flights to Port au Prince, explained that between January and February, the company offered six daily flights carrying humanitarian personnel to Haiti, but in mid-March reduced its operations to its traditional two flights a day .
American Airlines also opened for the first time, a daily flight from Santo Domingo to Puerto Principe. Las Americas International Airport in Santo Domingo, the largest in the country, also increased its operations with the arrival of 480 humanitarian aid flights between January and February, which means an increase of over 10% of its roughly 90 flights daily .

Given the lack of capacity of the terminal, the airport of Puerto Plata, Samana and Punta Cana flights were also loaded with humanitarian aid.

True Facts. And since DR was the first nation to help out, I say better DR than some other nation.

The DR is very much "in the red" because of the one way aid to Haiti and the stress of a new immigration of 100,000 Haitians a month since the quake.
Just because a few hotels, airlines and airports benefitted doesn't mean that the DR has accumulated any economic benefits from this disaster.
My sources in PAP tell me that no money has been seen coming into the Haitian economy so far.

I guess medium term the DR could benefit from the short term migration as the labour could be used, for example, to bring more marginal land into good production. Also raise crops on at present uncultivated land. Tourist attractions could be built - for example forest trails.
S.

US senators ask $3.5 billion for Haiti recovery


By JONATHAN M. KATZ, Associated Press Writer – Wed May 5, 8:13 pm ET

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – U.S. senators proposed Wednesday to increase American aid to Haiti to $3.5 billion over the next five years to help the country emerge from the pulverizing blow of the Jan. 12 earthquake.

The proposal introduced by senators John Kerry of Massachusetts and Bob Corker of Tennessee calls for spending nearly 25 percent more than President Barack Obama had said in March was needed to rebuild. Kerry is the chairman and top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Corker is the committee's No. 2 Republican.

Proponents say the legislation is essential to help a country of nearly 10 million people that saw its capital destroyed, government decapitated and 1.3 million people left homeless by the magnitude-7 quake. The Haitian government estimates between 230,000 and 300,000 people were killed.

In addition to tripling U.S. funding for next year, the bill would create a senior Haiti policy coordinator, appointed by Obama and based in the State Department, to oversee a program of improving governance, economic growth, environmental restoration and investment in women and children.
The measure includes the $1.15 billion pledged in March at a United Nations donors conference for Haiti, plus adds an additional $500 million a year through 2014, on top of other funds already pledged by Congress.

That would raise the total money pledged by the international community for Haiti's rebuilding to nearly $15 billion, including the money pledged by nearly 50 donors at the U.N. conference and $2.7 billion already pledged for humanitarian relief.

The international aid group Oxfam praised the Kerry-Corker bill for supporting Haitian-expressed needs and leadership in the country's rebuilding. But it expressed concern that the policy coordinator would keep development experts from effectively organizing the U.S. response.

The money could still be a long way off: Even if the bill passes the Senate and House, its proposals then would have to be separately approved by congressional appropriations committees, which would take it up as a contentious midterm election approaches.

Kerry and Corker's bill is the latest in a flurry of Haiti-related legislation in recent weeks.

On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill to expand trade preferences for Haitian textiles. Lawmakers had already passed bills that make it easier to contribute to Haitian relief efforts and calling on international financial groups to forgive Haiti's $1 billion in international debts.

In Haiti, a desperate plea for jobs may be answered

U.S. lawmakers are poised to pass legislation aimed at helping Haiti rebuild its quake-shattered economy.

Related Content
Complete coverage of the earthquake in Haiti
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES

JCHARLES@MIAMIHERALD.COM

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- They line up well before the break of dawn, as early as 3 a.m. next to a collapsed hospital in this quake-ravaged capital. With yellow envelopes in hand, and a color photo attached to their hand-printed applications, they wait -- holding out hope and a prayer they will be among the chosen few.

``I just want to work,'' said Jimmy Antoine, 30, an unemployed manager who lost his livelihood when the hotel he worked in toppled into rubble during the deadly Jan. 12, 7.0-magnitude earthquake. ``It doesn't matter what kind of job. I'll take whatever I can find.''

Since Jan. 18, the operators of SODEC International, one of Haiti's few employment agencies, have collected 147,000 applications from job-seeking Haitians like Antoine, who spent hours braving the Haitian heat and chasing rumors of employment opportunities.

Haiti's desperate plea for jobs is poised to get a huge boost Wednesday when U.S. lawmakers from both chambers and parties approve legislation aimed at bolstering long-term investments in Haiti's textile and apparel market by giving the Caribbean nation greater access to the U.S. clothing market.
The expansion of the trade preferences would allow Haiti to triple its duty-free access for knits and woven fabrics -- while extending the benefits well into the next decade. In 2006, Congress passed the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act to boost Haitian exports to the United States. It was then modified. This is the third modification.

It's a move Haitian officials had been pushing for well before the Jan. 12 catastrophic quake but pursued in earnest after the devastation shattered what little there was of Haiti's economy, and leaving 1.3 million Haitians homeless.

``I heartly welcome this latest move by such a broad coalition of both parties and of both houses of the U.S. Congress to help attract massive investment to Haiti in the textile sector,'' President René Préval told The Miami Herald.

REBUILDING
Préval said the new access should help to create tens of thousands of jobs -- a huge nod ``toward the reconstruction of the Haitian economy.''

Following the quake that Préval now says has left 300,000 dead, the world community rushed to Haiti's aid, spending and pledging billions on the relief and recovery. But supporters of Haiti have long argued that jobs, not handouts, are key to helping the disaster-prone nation get back on its feet.
``The survival and stability of Haiti will be determined in large part by rebuilding a viable economy,'' said Sen. Bill Nelson, a cosponsor of the bill. ``Expanding Haiti's access to the U.S. market is exactly the right thing to do at this critical juncture.''

Nelson said the bill is expected to pass the senate chamber unanimously, and could reach President Barack Obama for his signature as early as next week after passing the house.
Mark D'Sa, senior director for sourcing and production with Gap, said the legislation ``is a significant step in the right direction.''

`NOT THE PANACEA'
Even with the limits the HELP ACT -- as the legislation is being called -- puts on woven pants and knit T-shirts to protect U.S. jobs and not negatively impact other trade legislations in the region, it will promote benefits, he said. But he warned, while a balanced agreement, it is ``not the panacea to Haiti's problems.''

Still with the Haitian government expressing a desire to create at least three industrial parks outside of Port-au-Prince, and three Korean textile manufactures expressing interest in creating between 10,000 and 30,000 new jobs in Haiti, the legislation comes at an opportune time, say Haitians.
For instance in recent months, at least three Korean manufacturers and government officials have expressed interest in investing in Haiti, visiting the country at least on four different occasions. Two weeks ago the Haitian government hand-delivered a letter to Korea's foreign minister offering to provide land in exchange for a $50 million investment by the Korean government. The money would go into the creation of a new industrial park outside of the capital near Croix-des- Bouquets where the government and international community recently moved hundreds of homeless families living in a dangerous golf course.

The new industrial park would include housing, as well as the latest factory models.
``There's going to be a minimum of 50,000 jobs created in the next three to four years and this is important,'' said Lionel Delatour, a consultant for the Haitian government who has been instrumental in getting all three special trade legislations on Haiti's behalf passed.
Delatour said though the initial jobs will be in the garment sector, ``the new investors are interested in dying and finising and building textile plants,'' which would lead to higher-paying jobs. Today, there are a total of 28 companies and 28,000 workers in an industry that once offered as many as 130,000 jobs.

Georges Sassine, the Haitian government liaison on the trade legislation, said now that the U.S. lawmakers have done their part, the ball is now in the court of the foreign companies. He and Delatour are in Brazil selling Haiti to that South American nation's biggest manufactures.

The need for jobs here is evident on any given day as Haitians take over sidewalks hoping for work.
On Tuesday, more than 500 people had already handed in applications well before noon closing time to Henry Chery, the director general of SODEC International. An employment agency, the group most recently ran a nine-story hospital that pancaked with 151 people including new mothers inside.

NEW REALITY
The fact that Haitians would take a job in a factory, even if they are overqualified to operate a sewing machine is the new reality of Haiti, a country where even out-of-work doctors are agreeing to stack boxes for foreign nonprofit groups for $12-a-day because they have a family to feed, Chery said.
``That is what pains me the most,'' he said, working from out of a shipping container parked next to the hospital. ``People don't want to live like homeless victims, waiting for a handout. They want to work hard so that they can eat.''

Chery says his goal is to collect 400,000 applications, basing that number on statements, he said, made by Préval during a recent visit by former U.S. Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton to Haiti. The two last month wrote a letter to key lawmakers asking them to support the trade bill.
``President Préval said the international community would create 200,000 jobs in Haiti,'' he said, believing the number. ``They will provide it if everything bodes well for Haiti. They cannot reconstruct without the people to do the labor, a secretary to welcome the people to the offices or a receptionist, or without the people to do the payroll.''

Miami Herald staff writer Lesley Clark contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.


Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/04/v-fullstory/1613580/in-haiti-a-desperate-plea-for.html#ixzz0n7Kk5nRX

U.S. House passes textile trade bill for Haiti
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES AND LESLEY CLARK

JCHARLES@MIAMIHERALD.COM

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. House Wednesday took a major step in boosting employment opportunities in earthquake-ravaged Haiti, passing legislation to extend the country's trade preferences.

The bill -- which heads to the Senate and could be signed into law by President Barack Obama as soon as next week -- gives Haiti greater access to the U.S. clothing market, for woven and knit fabrics, and extends the life of its current duty-free access well into the next decade.

The move was welcomed by Haitian President René Préval, as well as former U.S. Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, each of whom wrote a letter to key lawmakers last month asking them to support the legislation. In one case, sources say Bush called a lawmaker who had planned to block the legislation over concerns that it would hurt U.S. jobs.

``This important step responds to the needs of the Haitian people for more tools to lift themselves from poverty, while standing to benefit U.S. consumers,'' the two former U.S. presidents said in a statement Wednesday.

Lawmakers in textile-rich states said the bill could burden the domestic textile industry. Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., noted that most of the apparel produced in Haiti is made from yarn from American textile companies, but that the bill would change that and could allow Third World countries to ship ``almost-finished'' products to Haiti, which in turn could be sent to the United States duty-free.

``In a time when our people need jobs, this bill is giving them away,'' McHenry said. ``Haiti's earthquake was a true tragedy but this bill is not just about Haiti. This legislation will let China ship textiles to Haiti, do minimal work there, and then turn around and ship them to the U.S. duty-free. It doesn't help Haiti recover and it kills more western North Carolina jobs.''

But the former presidents, who visited Haiti recently as part of a private fundraising initiative President Obama asked them to spearhead, called it an important development in paving Haiti's way forward, even as the country grapples with an urgent need for food, water, shelter and sanitation.

The bill's Senate sponsors, Senate Finance committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, hailed the House vote and called for ``swift passage'' in the Senate.

``Our bill is a common-sense approach that will provide sustainable, long-term assistance to help Haiti get back on its feet by improving U.S. market access for Haitian textiles,'' Baucus said.

Grassley said the bipartisan legislation ``addresses the concerns that have been expressed by the U.S. textile industry with respect to both domestic and regional production of textiles and apparel.''

The new legislation is expected to triple Haitian exports into the U.S. clothing market. Supporters say controls -- such as limits on how much can be exported -- have been put in the measure to protect U.S. jobs and other trade deals in the region that currently assist Central American nations.


Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/05/1614673/us-house-passes-textile-trade.html#ixzz0n7TiJzcW

only in the dominican republic can relief workers to a disaster be considered tourists. a tourist is a temporarliy leisured person visiting a place away from his usual surroundings, or a businessman visiting a country on a conference or training program. if you are being remunerated in the country in which you are, you are NOT A TOURIST. then again, when you create a generation of people who can barely recognise their own names, you can tell them anything.