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View Full Version : Drop DR debt



NewsWhore
01-19-2010, 04:00 PM
Last July the Paris Club countries agreed to cancel Haiti's foreign debt burden. This debt was unlikely to be repaid. This decision was reconfirmed during the Santo Domingo summit for Haiti, but President Leonel Fernandez took it a step further by proposing that dropping the Dominican debt could help develop Haiti.
Former Central Bank governor Guillermo Caram concurs. In an op-ed piece in Hoy newspaper, he writes that the United States, Spain, Venezuela, Japan and Brazil should cancel the Dominican Republic's bilateral foreign debt. Instead of paying the debt, the fund would be available for Dominican companies to work on the reconstruction of Haiti based on a master plan. Caram proposes the consolidation of all business energies into converting the DR into a platform for the reconstruction of Haiti for the Haitians. "We have the human and business infrastructure, the professionals and companies, especially the builders, including the materials," he said. He explained the construction sector could handle the extra activity, because it has suffered a 14% slump. Caram says that the solution is not for the DR to open its doors to all the Haitians in need. What is being suffered today is magnified by the previous calamities that are the consequence of environmental mismanagement that has devastated the 28,000 km2 of Haitian territory, he writes. He concludes that an increase in migration means the entire 76,000km2 of the island would run the risk of becoming a desert.

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