SANTO DOMINGO. The president of the Association of Shipowners (ANRD), Teddy Heinsen, who participated in a discussion on the progress and challenges of turning the Dominican Republic into a logistics hub in the Caribbean, said that there are already several logistics companies operating, but seeing everything that remains to be done, he acknowledged that every beginning is slow.

“The important thing from now on is to streamline, we are talking about that there are licenses that take two or three months to be issued, when the competition, for example, in England takes two weeks,” said the business leader.

He highlighted, in that sense, the importance of speeding up the process of issuing the licenses to be able to move towards making the Dominican Republic in the Hub of the Caribbean.

He claimed that when a client arrives from obroad to install a logistics hub, not only to distribute locally, but to sell to other Latin American sites, the first question is how long does it take to start operating and that when the answer is three to four months, the investor rather leave to another site where in two weeks it is possible to start operations.

In addition, Heinsen said that another aspect that also affects is the cost involved in internal transportation, which he considers is a very controversial situation in the Dominican Republic due to the issue that exists with the Dominican Transportation Federation (Fenatrado) that requires a fee of all the heavy cargo transfer in the country.

When answering that if the transport has not improved after the ruling of the Superior Administrative Court that gave the green light to the employers so that they can transport their loads, Heisen said: “No, in fact there was a very good intention of the National Council of Private Entrerprises (CONEP, for its acronym in Spanish). There is a sentence, but you see how the same agents of Fenatrado are still discussing. “

He considered that the same members of Fenatrado say in the newspapers that 50% of all transport (heavy) belongs to them and that “if this is the case, there is no valid sentence, the ruling is put into operation by the regulatory apparatus, which is the Police, where you can go complain about that and until now you have not received the necessary support to do that. “

The activity in which Heinsen spoke was attended by the head of the General Directorate of Customs, the American Chamber of Commerce, the Dominican Association of Operators and Logistics Centers, as well as the participation in the panel of important personalities related to international trade.

Likewise, the following speakers participated: Salvador Figueroa Sánchez, president of the Dominican Association of Center and Logistic Operators (Asologic); Alexander Schad, chairman of the Trade Facilitation Committee of AMCHAMDR and Carlos Flagger, second vice president of Asologic.

Among the topics discussed there are “The DGA as a propeller of the logistics activity in the country,” “Logistics in perspective,” “Perspective of the importer / exporter,” “Shipping logistics” and “Focus of the 4th industrial revolution”.