Alert in the industrial sector: Massive entry of irregular products reported at the border
The national industry faces a significant threat due to the proliferation of foreign products entering Dominican territory without complying with the sanitary registrations or the labeling required by current regulations. This issue, which involves goods from nations such as India, Turkey, and China, has raised alarms among the country’s productive sectors.
Cirse Almánzar, a renowned businesswoman and former vice president of the Association of Industries of the Dominican Republic, warned about the gravity of this situation. As she explained, the items enter through the border with Haiti, where they are subjected to illegal relabeling processes during transshipment, bypassing quality controls and local regulations.
Alarming figures and tax evasion
According to the estimates presented, the flow of irregular goods is constant and massive. It is estimated that approximately 930 barges cross into the country monthly, transporting products that end up being distributed in supermarkets and businesses nationwide, lacking the proper sanitary certification.
This phenomenon not only represents a risk to consumer health and a blow to the competitiveness of the local industry, but it also constitutes a large-scale tax evasion mechanism. Almánzar pointed out that the entry of these products, which usually carry a high tariff burden, generates losses for the State estimated at some 1 billion dollars, equivalent to approximately 60 billion Dominican pesos.
A culture and a modus vivendi were generated at border points, where warehouses have been developed, where semi-trucks transfer cargo to smaller trucks, and most of those goods have no control.
Cirse Almánzar
Logistics of irregularity
The situation has been aggravated by the instability in Haiti, a factor that has been exploited by logistical networks to operate in border areas. At these points, warehouses have been established where goods are unloaded from heavy vehicles and subsequently broken down into smaller transport units to facilitate their internal distribution, thus evading any effective supervision by the competent authorities.
For the business representative, this massive influx of products from markets with overproduction directly affects the sustainability of Dominican producers, who must compete on unequal terms against goods that do not meet the legal standards required in the national territory.
