The president of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, advocates for greater commercial and economic integration of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.
This was stated this Saturday in the opening session of the assembly that the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is holding this week in Punta Cana, the main tourist and convention destination in the Dominican Republic.
“Our region shares numerous challenges that can only be overcome with a joint effort: climate change, poverty, inequality, the energy transition, among others,” Abinader said.
“In our joint future there are not only challenges and challenges, but there are also many opportunities and one of them is the potential for commercial integration and achieving efficiency in logistics that the entire region has,” said the Dominican president.
“Our geographical location in the center of the Caribbean gives us a competitive advantage that we are taking advantage of.
This Government has the mission of turning the country into a regional logistics
hub
and for this we are working hand in hand with the IDB,” he added.
Elaborating on this idea, he pointed out that the social and economic progress of the Dominican Republic “is achieved more quickly and safely through cooperation and strategic alliances.”
Furthermore, he indicated that “platforms like the IDB are the ideal scenario” to carry out efforts to channel the large investments that the region needs.
“The organization is not only a promoter of economic and social development in Latin America and the Caribbean, it is also a promoter of regional integration,” he stated.
Abinader endorsed the previous words of Ilan Goldfajn, president of the IDB, who reiterated that the Punta Cana meeting will be a historic meeting for the bank due to the three simultaneous major reforms it is undertaking: the new institutional strategy, the recapitalization and the new model of business of IDB Invest and the promotion of IDB Lab. He also shared the idea that the region may be facing a turning point for improving productivity and growth.
The Dominican president affirmed that the decisions that come out of the Punta Cana assembly “will mark a before and after in the lives of millions of Latin Americans.”
"A model to follow"
“This event finds the Dominican Republic in a moment of social and political stability, where our sustained economic growth, driven by sectors such as tourism, free zones, construction and the adequate implementation of social policies have allowed a record reduction in poverty, which "which implies significant progress in improving the general economic conditions of the entire Dominican population," the country's president said in his speech.
He thanked “the financial and technical support provided by the IDB Group to the country in areas such as infrastructure, energy, transportation, education, health and institutional strengthening” and said that the progress of the Dominican State “has been achieved successfully in large part by the support and accompaniment of the IDB Group during all these years.”
“Our nations face challenges that can only be overcome through the investment of public and private resources and in this context, the IDB group is a fundamental actor, creating innovative products that allow us to access these funds in better conditions,” he added, citing among them Climate change and its impact on island nations.
If Abinader praised the IDB, the president of said organization did the same with the host country: “The Dominican Republic, in many ways, is a model to follow.
This country has grown consistently over the past decade thanks largely to sound economic policies and a focus on promoting private sector investment and growth.
He has excelled in governance, making the country attractive to investors.
“It had a record level of foreign direct investment in 2023 after another record in 2022,” Goldfajn said.
New president of the assembly
The assembly of governors has its own president and it has become customary that the Minister of Finance or Economy of the country who organizes the annual meetings presides over it until the next appointment.
By acclamation, then, the governors elected the Minister of Finance of the Dominican Republic, José Manuel
Jochi
Vicente.
In his speech in the open session of the assembly, Jochi assured that “the ghost of another lost decade for Latin America is increasingly distant.”
He pointed out that the cooperation of multilateral organizations, especially the IDB, “has been key to consolidating the implementation of public policy in our countries and guaranteeing social, economic stability and fiscal sustainability and the strengthening of institutions.”
“The IDB has been a faithful ally in the actions to address these challenges.”
In the specific case of the Dominican Republic, it is its largest source of resources among official international creditors, contributing 44%.
Vicente showed his support for the reforms promoted by the president of the IDB, Ilan Goldfajn, in these annual meetings to try to expand the scale and impact of its actions.
“I am convinced that the decisions we will make in this assembly will translate into greater regional integration, more opportunity to create inclusive growth, reduction of inequality, skills for the effects of climate change,” he stated in his first intervention as president of the assembly.