AMCHAM hails end of US ban on Dominican farm products

Santo Domingo.- The AmericanChamber of Commerce (AMCHAMDR) on Tuesday hailed the US Agriculture Dept. andPlant Health (APHIS) decision to lift the ban on the import of variousvegetables and citrus fruits from Dominican Republic.

It said agricultural isone of the sectors that benefits from the DRCAFTA trade deal, and which hasbeen affected by the US ban on the presence of the medfly.

AMCHAMDR lauded the DominicanGovernment´s efforts to maintain a free flow of information with US authoritieson the monitoring and surveillance program to eradicate the fruit fly, as describedby APHIS senior official Michael Guidicipietro.

“The appearance of thispest teaches us some lessons from which we can emphasize that food security isa priority and increasingly complex in the US market, and other developedcountries and therefore should be very effective in the control of the entireproduction and supply chain and be responsible for detecting problems andaddress them to avoid greater ills,” AMCHAMDR said in an emailed statement.

“There’s also a needfor us to diversify our production capacity with export quality. And thirdly,we must have institutional strength, with well-crafted arguments based onscience and updated in order to minimize the effects which have become apparentwhen a product is prevented from leaving to markets that we have conquered withgreat effort and others which others can take away if they replace us.”