We spoke with Fernando Puig, executive vice president of the Santiago Chamber of Commerce and Production, to get closer to what surrounds this year’s Expo Cibao motto, “Towards sustainability”, a theme that applies both to the environment and to the financial and social, and which is part of the focus of the institution’s strategic plan.
Achieving sustainability in SMEs, is it possible or is it just an ideal?
It is feasible and achievable. The first thing you have to have is the decision, at the highest levels of the company, that you want to be, first, financially viable: every company wants to be, but it is not enough. In addition to that, the company has a social role, which is to create jobs while recognizing labor regulations and laws, and that must also be a first-level decision. The company that does not comply with this is not sustainable. Similarly, on the environmental level, make rational use of resources, with a view to leaving future generations in a habitable environment, livable, where resources remain.
In the financial part, talking about sustainability in SMEs, which are the most difficult companies to start, to sustain from one generation to another, here the important thing is to be accompanied. There are programs, multiple private and public programs, that accompany companies to try to guarantee that financial sustainability.
How is sustainability considered in the Strategic Plan of the Santiago Chamber of Commerce and Production?
We, precisely this year, concluded a strategic plan for the next five years, 2022-2027, where a series of elements are addressed.
First, increase the representativeness of member companies, be an interlocutor for the entire business sector, members or non-members; ensure an expansion of the membership so that they can benefit from the services that are directed to the members; specific consultancies, even training programs or holding events that are for the benefit of the members. We also talk about financial sustainability, that is, we have to generate activities that provide us with the necessary resources. In addition, in this strategic plan, we are talking about being an interlocutor, as I mentioned before, with the business sector that is concerned that there are laws that promote the development of the business sector in a general sense.
Like every year, the theme is different: What is really aspired to with the motto of this installment “Towards sustainability”?
If we go back a little bit, there is total coherence with the latest songs. In the year 2020 is when we had in mind to address some of the sustainability issue. Actually, the pandemic came and that year we had to present Expo Cibao 2020 with the slogan “Towards digital transformation”. It was the first totally virtual event that was held in the Dominican Republic, even with a platform owned by the Chamber. Then, in 2021, in the midst of the pandemic, we had the motto “New challenges, new goals”, that is, the pandemic transformed us personally and in business and, following that, already overcoming the pandemic, then we go towards sustainability.
