NADALEEN SINGH

The T&T Cham­ber in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic (DR) is call­ing for more in­vest­ment in­to the DR since de­mand for goods and ser­vices in­creased due to the 7.0 earth­quake which oc­curred in Jan­u­ary. Fed­eri­co Reyes, pres­i­dent of the T&T Cham­ber in the DR, said he wants to have more in­vest­ment in the econ­o­my of the DR.

"With the cri­sis, the DR mar­ket is in­creas­ing. We are pro­duc­ing more and are go­ing in­to Haiti. They (Haiti) are de­mand­ing more we need more in­vest­ment from T&T," Reyes said. Reyes said the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty col­lab­o­rat­ed with the Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide im­me­di­ate as­sis­tance. "In the same night, we sent hun­dreds of gen­er­a­tors. One of my friends who owns a busi­ness, sent trucks the same night that the earth­quake came.

"I was part of the Unit­ed Na­tions, we sent from the air­port–goods–so we helped. He said for a long time there was a bar­ri­er be­tween Haiti and DR for po­lit­i­cal rea­sons, but that was not a prob­lem af­ter the earth­quake hit. De­scrib­ing the DR econ­o­my, Reyes said there is room for a lot of in­vest­ments in­to bev­er­age, fer­tilis­er and ba­by prod­ucts. Talk­ing about the busi­ness links he made at the Trade and In­vest­ment Con­ven­tion (TIC), he said com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) would be tight­ened. (NS)