World Bank eyes plan as exporters face 3.3% fall

Santo Domingo.- DominicanExporters Association (Adoexpo) president Sadala Khoury on Monday said Dominicanexports have been "severely affected" in recent months, on among otherreasons, the Med-fly which prompted the United States ban on the entry of severalfarm products.

"Exports havebeen affected, the issue of the Mediterranean fruit fly, the issue of Haiti whichhas closed the border to us twice, the issue of low gold prices, plus Barrick´slower production," Khoury said.

Moreover the CentralBank´s report on the economy for the first half said total national exports fell3.3% and a -13.1% decline compared with the same period last year.

The Central Bank saidthe fall was due mostly to lower gold and silver exports and goods procured inports. "In that sense, gold and silver exports continued to show falls,and decreased compared to the first half of 2014 at 21.6% and 62.8%respectively as a result of maintenance work on the country´s largest miningcompany since the beginning of this year."

To counter declining exportsAdoexpo hosted a conference with World Bank Global Trade Practice andCompetitiveness director Cecile Fruman, who diagnosed Dominican exports."In this activity we concluded that we need a strategic export plan, whichAdoexpo and the World Bank developed jointly with the Dominican government,"she said.

She said the planwould seek to structure a formula to strategically develop exports, which Frumannotes that it now occurs without planning.