The director general of Customs, Eduardo (Yayo) Sanz Lovatón, affirmed that 2021 will go down in history as one of the most transformative years for the Dominican Republic’s foreign trade.
He reported that the Directorate General of Customs (DGA) provided the government with 24% of all the money that entered the State, higher than the average of previous years which was 18 to 19%.
“We have increased the 24-hour clearance programs which saves millions of dollars for importers, shippers, warehousemen and everyone who uses the Dominican Republic as a trade center,” said the official.
Interviewed by Pablo McKinney on the program “McKinney” on Color Visión, Sanz Lovatón said that there are already more than 4,500 entities that are dispatching their goods in 24 hours.
“We were in Dubai where we made an exhibition presenting the Dominican Republic as a logistics hub with more than eight international airports, with 12 ports and an infrastructure at the service of foreign trade,” Sanz Lovatón said.
He informed that the free trade zones export products and services for five consecutive months for more than US$1 billion per month.
He mentioned that Good-Year moved one of its plants out of Zaragoza, Spain, and installed it in the Dominican Republic, where it assembles and finishes its products to send them from our country to all Latin America.
He explained that the Dominican economy was essentially an exporter of agricultural raw materials, then a tourist power, but that the government of Luis Abinader has put logistics at the center.
Sanz Lovatón said that with the new General Customs Law, it has been possible to facilitate operational processes, recognize the rights of importers and regulate the powers of the agency.
The senior leader of the Partido Revolucionario Moderno (PRM) defined Customs as “an institution that not only collects taxes, but also facilitates trade”.
The official explained that Customs has centralized all procedures in the Foreign Trade Single Window of the National Committee for Trade Facilitation, where all import processes are facilitated and in which all ministries that have to grant permits for the entry of goods or raw materials into the country intervene.
