SANTO DOMINGO.- Tourism minister Francisco Javier Garcia said the time has come to launch the South’s region tourism development, including projects in Bahia de las Aguilas, where Environment minister Jaime David Fernandez Mirabal reportedly said there’s no “inconvenience.”  

The statement is the first by the official regarding the controversial issue of construction on the beach at Bahia de las Aguilas; although Monday morning Fernandez Mirabal said studies have determined that the protected area’s shoreline can’t withstand tradition exploitation. “The hotels can be built on the buffer zone at Cabo Rojo, where the Bahia de las Aguilas beach is a short walk away,” he said in the Hoy Mismo program on Channel 9.

Earlier this year former ministers of Tourism Felix Jimenez, and of the Environment Max Puig, staged a public confrontation over Bahia de las Aguilas tourism development.

Garcia also said investments in the millions in the South will be announced in the next few days.

The official said the idea is to obtain economic development in harmony with nature, with the South region having those exceptional conditions to become one of the country’s major tourism regions, and contribute to mitigate its poverty.

Garcia said he’ll meet with Senate president Reinaldo Pared in the next few days, to deal with pending bills and agreements aimed at the South region in order to expedite their debate and approval.

He said the zone urgently needs a genuine tourism development that’ll benefit those provinces’ inhabitants, especially Pedernales, Barahona, Independencia and Bahoruco. “I believe the time has already come to launch the South region’s tourism, and we’re going to work so this becomes a reality. There are dozens of foreign investors interested in investing in that zone," Garcia said in program D `Agenda, Channel 9.