MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil to begin Mercosur talks with Dominican Republic

Welber Barral, Foreign Trade Secretary

Brazilian Foreign Trade Secretary Welber Barral flies Monday to Dominican Republic to promote bilateral and advance towards a road map for an agreement with Mercosur.

Bilateral trade between Brazil and the Dominican Republic reached 155 million US dollars in the first half of this year compared to 115 million for the whole of 2009.

“Nevertheless this is far from the enormous potential we must take advantage of”, said Barral who is scheduled to meet government officials and private sector businessmen.

Barral also said several Brazilian companies were interested in investing in the Dominican Republic since the country has privileged access to the US and the European Union markets for certain goods.

“The Dominican Republic can act as a bridge to expand Brazilian exports to the US and Europe and many of our businessmen and Dominicans are interested in exploiting those opportunities”, said Barral.

Brazilian companies have developed ethanol plants in the Dominican Republic which is exported to the US market.

Brazil is also interested in expanding trade with the Caribbean and “Santo Domingo is a very good starting point”, said Barral who revealed that Brazil’s development bank would soon increase its credit line to the Dominican Republic to finance Brazilian exports to one billion US dollars.

Regarding a road map for talks with Mercosur, Barral said it was a “Brazilian initiative” which will be strongly promoted once Brazil holds the group’s rotating chair for the next six months starting August.

Barral said that Mercosur has several agreements with countries of the region in the framework of the Latinamerican Integration Association, ALADI, and “these could be a good model for establishing negotiations with the Dominican Republic”.