Haiti - DR : A complaint against Haiti could be lodged with the WTO
The Dominican Association of Exporters (Adoexpo) said that the new fee of about 800 US dollars imposed by the Haitian authorities for the verification of Dominican goods exported that pass through Haitian customs, represents an exorbitant cost.
Elizabeth Mena, the President of Adoexpo who expressed the concern of the export sector, called on the Ministry of External Relations, ProDominicana, the General Directorate of Customs, the General Directorate of Taxes and other official institutions related to this issue to seek a equitable solution to this new measure of the Haitian Government which "constitutes a hard blow for the competitiveness of the country".
For her part, Adoexpo's Executive Vice-President, Odile Miniño, explained that these verifications should not be charged to exporters as they are excessive and not comparable to the average charged for the inspection of containers in other countries [...]
Reacting from abroad to this new fee, the Dominican Economist Luis Manuel Piantini, former representative of the Dominican Republic before the World Trade Organization (WTO), believes that it is possible to bring the case of Haiti to the WTO for having affected by this excessive advance, trade between the two Nations. He believes that in this case, a Haitian elite benefits from these taxes to the detriment of the Haitian population...
