Santo Domingo.- President Danilo Medina on Tuesday said the State-owned National Housing Bank (BNV) will become an agency to promote national exports, fund competitiveness and strengthen the productive sector’s export capacity.
The BNV has historically been the source of cronyism and influence peddling, as evidenced by the designations of political leaders with past criminal history and without any financial experience to manage such an agency.
"It will be a credit institution created expressly to finance the export sector and its growth," said Medina in the follow-up to the 2nd Dominican Industry Forum held at the Central Bank.
He said the BNV will be transformed before June, but noted that "the Government and the private sector alliance should continue as usual."
He also announced that the Government will make it easier to get permits to develop infrastructure and “tirelessly continue to improve the power sector.”
Medina said he’s "conviction that… industrialists have a fundamental role in the construction of society and the achievement of those goals."
The Forum, being held at Medina’s request, aims to define policies and measures to support industry.
Jobs to quell poverty
"You can be sure that we won’t stop until the goal of 400,000 jobs is reached," said Medina, adding: "We’re taking thousands and thousands of people out of poverty. We’re doing it in the most sustainable way possible: through jobs."