do business in the Dominican Republic - Pellerano & Herrera

DOING BUSINESS INTHE DOMINICAN REPUBLICvention or events centers, cruise companies, leisure, ecologic or theme parks,port and tourist infrastructure, small and medium sized companies depending ontourism, infrastructure for basic services and complementary activities.c) ProceduresApplications must be filed with the Council of Tourism Promotion (CONFOTUR),an organ formed of public and private sector representatives charged with theimplementation of Law 158-01, and fulfill the respective requirements, whichinclude particularly environmental studies and many other guarantees of environmentprotection.The Technical Bureau for Planning and Programming is a body of the Ministry ofTourism with the function to determine the guidelines and priorities that willguide the application of the law, and to assist CONFOTUR in the processing ofclassification requests and the performance of its attributions in general, and tomake the contacts and offer all the necessary information to investors.d) BenefitsThe incentives granted by Law 158-01 include tax exemptions for projects anddeductions for investments.The extent of tax exemptions is very wide, including100% of income tax, construction charges, purchase of real property andcustom duties for a period of ten years. Furthermore, companies and individualsmay deduct up to 20% from their taxable income invested in such touristprojects.e) Tourism Promotion FundFinally, Law 158-01 also creates an Official Fund for Tourist Promotion with thepurpose of granting a more effective promotion of the Dominican Republic astourist destination in international markets, and of giving financial support to thenew tourist poles established in the law.3AGRICULTURE64OVERVIEW AND PERSPECTIVESThe Dominican Republic has large tropical forests and many agricultural areas. Ithas also highlands ascending to 3,000 meters that are good for growing a greatvariety of crops.There are no frosts and the rainfall goes from 400 to 4,000 millimetersper year with an average of 1,500 millimeters.The country's territory is distributed as follows: 52% is mainly forest, 20% is suitablefor livestock, 26% is suitable for arable farming, and the remaining 3% is forpreservation.The country is the largest Caribbean exporter of agricultural products.The mainagricultural products are rice and beans, and the most important agriculturalitems exported are sugar, coffee, cocoa and tobacco. Since the end of the 80'sother products like fruits, tubers and other vegetables are also exported in largequantities.