Industries concerned with Competitiveness agency’s ‘bias’

Santo Domingo.- The Dominican Republic Industries Association (AIRD) on Wed. expressed its concern with the reports by the Observatory of Conditions of Competition in Markets published by the regulator Procompetencia, which in its view notes “a certain bias in the monitoring of the market of goods of national production, without   taking into account the incidence of imports of goods from other markets that benefit from equal or better market conditions, which harms those locally manufactured goods. ”

In a missive sent to National Competition Defense Commission president, Yolanda Martinez, the industrialists point out that within the observatory “only the local manufacturing area is sectorized and not the counterparts of imported products in the commercial areas.”

According to the AIRD, “both the first and the second report are concentrated in certain branches of the goods market, which would be monitored quarterly,” which the AIRD considers it a concern.

While the Observatory’s overall objective of the is to monitor the conditions of competition in the markets, “its results by the methodology followed can generate a negative bias and undermine the positioning and effort of the different sectors of the national economy.”

In the missive sent to Procompetencia, AIRD vice president Circe Almanzar explains that recurrent publications around certain products can generate “negative connotations in the perception of the market.”

In response to the first report last February, the industrialists had already sent a communication to Martinez, expressing similar concerns.

However, despite the industrialists’ concern, Procomptencia issued a second report in terms similar to the first.