To assess the current situation and relaunch the tobacco industry, President Luis Abinader announced the commission’s creation on Saturday. He appointed the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Mypimes (MICM), Víctor Bisonó (Ito), as its coordinator.
Abinader reiterated the need to unify criteria that result in actions that allow the tobacco industry’s consolidation and promote its relaunch to increase exports and create jobs through coordinated support from various government instances.
Bisonó said that this sector of the Cibao region exports more than 7 billion units of cigarettes a year, representing approximately US $ 950 million, making this sector a vital source of foreign exchange and elevating the Republic Dominicana as the world leader in exporting cigars by hand.
This sector is integrated into a cluster with more than 80 cigarette producers, and on it depend more than 100,000 peasant families that live from the cultivation of the aromatic leaf.
The commission has a period of one month to present a report on the current situation. It is made up of, in addition to the director of the Tobacco Institute (Intabaco), the ministers of Foreign Affairs and Agriculture, the governor of Santiago, and the CEI-RD, among others.