In Executive Branch Makes August 2024 Proposal For Financial Reform

The Economic Advisor of the Executive Branch considered that the debt is a crucial issue for the future of the economy because it generates a dynamic that in the end needs fiscal reform. Pedro Silverio said that this fiscal reform has been postponed for understandable reasons because the conditions that were taking place in the economy were not adequate to implement it, because both the productive part and consumption were very affected by the health crisis.

Silverio warned that he sees tax reform as inevitable, but it is necessary to analyze what kind of reform would be implemented and how to address it. The government official said another aspect to be determined is when the issue should be addressed.

“That is, if you start a discussion of a tax reform to be applied in August 2024, everyone who has the idea that it can be a government in 2024 will support it,” said the economic professional interviewed by Héctor Herrera Cabral in the program D’AGENDA that every Sunday is broadcast by Telesistema Canal 11 and TV Quisqueya for the United States. He added that, whoever thinks so, will have the idea that it is important to go to the government with an adequate fiscal instrument to face the situation.

He reiterated that to face the issue of debt, it has to be through this fiscal reform, because, although the government managed to reduce it by six or seven percentage points last year, the country will continue to need the financial markets.

Supplementary Budget

Dr. Pedro Silverio says the price of oil is well above what was budgeted, and this has had an impact on the cost structure in the Dominican economy, particularly inflation. The economic adviser to the Executive Branch assures that the fact that oil prices have risen so much, and that this is a determining variable to determine the import parity prices of fuels, has made the government have to assume costs to avoid a complete impact of that increase, on oil prices.

He explained that since the government took office, the price of oil was at 42 dollars a barrel, prices have been rising systematically, and the current authorities have implemented a policy of subsidizing fuel prices to prevent the impact from being so devastating on the consumption of Dominicans, especially in the poorest. “In that period from August 2020 to this month, the government has had to allocate about 15 billion pesos to avoid transmitting to consumers all the impact that the increase in oil prices has had,” the official explained.

He said that the government is making its effort so that this increase in oil prices is not so devastating in the consumption and production of Dominicans.