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NewsWhore
09-13-2011, 06:20 PM
President Leonel Fernandez is keeping up his campaign for attention to his proposal for a global consensus against commodity speculation with a call for global financial regulation. President Fernandez has received expressions of support for the proposal from world leaders.

In a speech, Global Economic Crisis and Speculation in Future Markets of Petrol and Food Commodities and their Impact on the Dominican Republic, he addressed the issues to an audience of diplomats, intellectuals, academics, business leaders, labor leaders, politicians and church representatives at the Jaragua Renaissance Hotel yesterday.

Fernandez said that this situation causes immense suffering for the citizens, who see their income evaporate, their buying power weakened, their savings disappear, their quality of life reduced and their hopes dispelled. He suggested that in order to tackle the problem, a new global consensus needed to be built that guarantees price stability, and he referred to a series of steps that the international community has taken in order to deal with the global crisis of food security and its different causes.

Fernandez claimed that in April the ministries of Finance and the governors of Central Banks of the G-20 expressed the need for the participants in the derivatives markets of foodstuffs to be subject to adequate regulation and supervision, and that transparency in the derivatives and futures markets needed to increase. He said that they are waiting with high hopes for the final recommendations of the International Organization of Securities Commissions due out this month, dealing with the regulation and supervision of these derivatives and futures markets.

President Leonel Fernandez said that the DR alone has had to pay US$4.4 billion more due to speculation since 2004. He urged for a consensus to guarantee the stability of the prices of raw materials, food commodities and the price of fuel on international markets.

"To appreciate the impact of food prices in all its magnitude it is necessary to mention that from 2006 to 2008, the price of rice increased by 127%, wheat was up 136%, soy 107% and milk more than 80%," he said.

He says the increases and the volatility are sources of social tension and political instability and a great calamity for the development of countries around the world, and said this was responsible for 1.15 billion people suffering from hunger at a global level.

President Leonel Fernandez said that speculation in the cost of fuel has meant that Dominicans have seen their income reduced by 10.5%, and the country has had to spend US$5.5 billion more to import fuel, compared to prices in 2004.

"In the absence of regulation, states find themselves unable to control the financial operations and transactions that it has been proven have a direct and determining effect on the stability of nations and the prosperity of peoples," he said.

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