The secretary of Industry and Commerce for the Dominican Republic, Sonia Guzmán, and Inter-American Development Bank President Enrique Iglesias today signed documents for a $9.4 million loan to support strategies and policies to increase business competitiveness.
The resources will finance projects, studies and technical assistance that will result in new policies to promote competitiveness guided by a joint public and private sector dialogue through the country’s National Competitiveness Council.
Among the activities will be the design and start-up of 15 to 20 business clusters, which will result in greater competitiveness because of efficiencies in scale, marketing and proximity.
Investments will also be made in specialized technical assistance that will focus on environmental and social issues that both enhance competitiveness and reflect corporate social responsibility.
A competitiveness fund will be established to finance measures, on a matching grant basis, that will increase or diversify exports of goods and services by enhancing the business climate and improving the competitiveness of business clusters.
An evaluation mechanism in the program will monitor its results and lessons learned, identifying the most effective overall policy tools and company-level activities that will increase competitiveness.
The program will be carried out by the Secretaría de Estado de Industria y Commercio, with $3.05 million in local counterpart funds to be provided by the public sector and a further $1.05 million to be provided by the private sector.