The President of the Republic, Luis Abinader, in his Accountability speech, announced that since the second week of January he instructed an inter-ministerial commission for Industry and Commerce, Foreign Relations and Agriculture to carry out all the necessary measures to safeguard and protect to rice producers with forceful and clear solutions.
He pointed out that food security seen as part of national security and that the work of national farmers and producers and everything that the productive chain of this sector represents is and will be a priority, as they have demonstrated in his management.
He explained that since the beginning of his government, they have been monitoring the issue of the great impact that the strong zero-rate tax reduction that would be applied to rice imports from 2025 and 2024, provided for in the DR-CAFTA, would have and that they have expressed concern. of the rice sector to the United States, the main trading partner of the Dominican Republic.
He pointed out that rice income depends on more than 90,000 direct jobs, 320,000 indirect jobs and 300 factories. The economic activity generated by this crop amounts to more than RD$45,000 million pesos, whose instability would create a real social crisis, which we are not going to allow.