Big business says the time has come for sweeping pacts

Santo Domingo.- "Business will not support another fiscal patch" but agrees with president-elect Danilo Medina that the time has come for sweeping pacts and taxes, education and the electricity sector, as key elements to break the inertia and move forward.

National Business Council (Conep) president Manuel Diez Cabral yesterday said there’ve been 9 tax patches since the country’s last comprehensive tax reform in 1992.

"Today we reach out business’ friendly hand to the elected government, so that we together break the inertia and so we, too, do what has never been; achieve a more prosperous Dominican Republic."

Diez, speaking in the American Chamber of Commerce’s monthly luncheon, said most of these patches were to cover short-term needs for government revenue and not as part of a comprehensive plan for national development.

He said government spending should be the first point to address in a pact, to raise its standard and prioritize social and productive investment. “We must agree on its reduction to eliminate duplicity in government, and merge and consolidate agencies to give coherence to the public sector to accomplish an austere state because we cannot continue accumulating fiscal deficits financed with foreign debt.”