Monday at the Karibe Convention Center took place the opening of the 9th Edition of the International Finance Summit organized by the Group Croissance, PROFIN and the Bank of the Republic of Haiti (BRH) around the theme "Financing Agri-Tourism in Haiti" which will take place from 22 to 25 April 2019 and whose first day was devoted to municipal finance.

In his opening speech Kesner Pharel, the CEO of the Group Croissance, gave an overview of tourism activity in the Caribbean in general and agri-tourism in particular, which consists in the local supply of fresh produce from the region. tourism sector.

A first panel composed of Lubonheur Loredant, Deputy Director General of the Directorate General of Taxes (DGI) of Serge Rosenthal Jr. Director of the IT unit and Jean Hervé Alcé, Deputy Director of the departmental directorates, spoke on the modernization and strengthening program of the DGI. This program (DGI 2.0) foresees several projects for 2020, including the unique tax identification and the updating of the information of all taxpayers "the DGI wants to be a partner to help municipalities to move forward" said Serge Rosenthal Jr.

Fednel Monchery, the Director General of the Ministry of the Interior and Local Authorities spoke on the problems related to the resources faced by municipalities stressing "The communes are under-administered, which leads to a clear incapacity to respond to the needs of the community" and proposed the establishment of a Training Center for administrators and municipal officials.

The final panel of the day Composed by Jude Edouard Pierre, President of the National Federation of Haitian Mayors (FENAMH) and Mayor of Carrefour, Kesner Pharel and Robert Paret Jr. CEO of PROFIN, spoke on the sub-theme "Financial Innovation in Municipalities".

In his speech the mayor of Carrefour, depicted a dark picture of municipal funding highlighting that "6 communes pocket 80% of communal revenues". Among other proposals to alleviate this problem, the mayor of Carrefour thinks it would be useful to provide the Republic with a general inspectorate of local finance for better management of public finances and took the opportunity to propose several ideas for financial change in municipalities. For his part, Robert Paret invited mayors to transparency and good governance to encourage investments at the municipal level.

Program of the Summit : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-27522-haiti-economy-d-1-9th-edition-of-the-summit-on-finance-and-technology.html

Recall that this summit will be followed this week on April 26th and 27th by the 4th Edition of the finTECH at Quisqueya University and will focus on "Facilitating financial inclusion in Haiti through ICT". For 2 days Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) applied to finance will be discussed. The results of the survey on financial inclusion in the country will also be presented at this event.

HL/ HaitiLibre