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At the meeting, Haiti pushed for only internationally certified Dominican firms to be allowed to export into the country, regulation of markets on the border, and Medina’s help in tackling contraband, which creates a competitive disadvantage.
“We cannot afford to keep losing over $300 million on the border and want an agreement at the highest level to tackle this problem,” Haitian Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe told the Miami Herald.
Haiti’s Commerce Minister Wilson Laleau said there needs to be a change in how the two nations conduct business that includes giving Haitian businesses better access to the Dominican market.
“Dominicans can sell in Haiti but Haitians can’t sell in the Dominican Republic,” said Laleau, referring to trade bottlenecks that have for years kept Haiti-made products off Dominican shelves. “If this continues, this will destroy Haiti’s economy and one day Haitians will not be able to buy their products. The Dominican Republic needs to understand it’s in their interests to address this imbalance.”
Haitian economist Kesner Pharel said the ban provides an opportunity for the countries to improve economic relations. “The current crisis between the two countries is not just a problem of eggs but rather a needed revolution of the Haitian economic system in front of an aggressive Dominican system,” he said.
While Haitian officials now acknowledge that it wasn’t bird flu but another flu strain — H1N1— that was sickening Dominicans, they stand by their decision. They say they were acting out of public health concerns.
Still, concerns that Haiti has become a dumping ground for lesser Dominican quality products remains. Those concerns were sparked last year when Haiti blocked Dominican salami imports. A Dominican consumer group found that 15 percent of salamis contained fecal matter and that 97 percent contained less than the standard minimum of 16 percent protein.
Dominican economist Pavel Isa Contreras, a professor at the Santo Domingo Institute of Technology, said the products imported into Haiti are the same as those sold to working-class Dominicans.
But Dr. Michel Chancy, a veterinarian and Haiti’s secretary of state for animal production, said for Haiti, the current dispute is “an opportunity to get quality products and to build a national market.”
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