The Dominican Association of Exporters (Adoexpo) is concerned about the average charge of US$800 for the verification of each container with merchandise that enters from the Dominican Republic
Adoexpo affirmed that the new charge of approximately US$800 established by the Haitian authorities represents an exorbitant cost, for the verification of the merchandise that pass through the customs of the neighboring country, this without including 27% of the income taxes that must be paid for services abroad.
The president of the business entity, Elizabeth Mena, expressed the sector’s concern because that market is the second commercial partner of the Dominican Republic, to which an approximate amount of $536 million was exported, between the months of January and September of this year.
The leader of Adoexpo called on the Ministry of Foreign Relations, ProDominicana, the General Directorate of Customs, General Directorate of Internal Taxes and other official institutions linked to this issue to seek a fair solution to this new measure of the Haitian government that “constitutes a hard blow for the competitiveness of the country ”.
For her part, the Executive Vice President of Adoexpo, Odile Miniño, explained that this charge corresponds to the FOB value, which, since it has to be paid to the SGS Company, hired for those purposes, located outside the national territory, so that Taxes can be withheld or presented as expenses to the treasury, which further increases costs.
Miniño Bogaert specified that these verifications should not be charged to exporters, they are excessive and in no way approach the average charged for the inspection of containers in other countries.