Big business seeks projects to develop border region

Santo Domingo.- The National Business Council (Conep) has established the "Quisqueya Dialogue" to identify projects which could develop the border area, its president of Rafael Blanco announced Thursday.

"Our effort is oriented precisely to create an investment climate of mutual trust between the Haitian and Dominican people," he said.

The business leader said Conep seeks to avert the violence that has raged in recent days, "there in Haiti, as well as on this side, because there have been violent actions on both sides."

"We should ease this climate of tension, we are neighbors, we aren’t going to move from any part of the island to anywhere, it’s one island divided into two countries with different cultures, but we have an obligation to live together in harmony for the wellbeing of both peoples," Blanco said after a meeting with the business sector and Police chief Manuel Castro at Iberoamericana University,

He said the two countries’ population of 20 million people “requires that we create jobs on both sides of the border.