Dominican Republic to Participate in World Food and Cooperation Summit

Dominican President Leonel Fernández will travel on Wednesday May 28 to Rome and El Salvador to participate in meetings about food security, climate change and bio-engineering. Participants will also discuss increased cooperation among countries belonging to the Central American Integration System (SICA).

The FAO has called leaders from around the world to debate and discuss the possible solutions in response to these increasing world food prices/p>

The Dominican leader will travel by private jet to El Salvador to attend the SICA meeting where he will review the possibility of negotiating a trade agreement with countries from the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR). After that he will return home then leave on Friday May 30th to attend a meeting with the national energy sector, according to a press release from the President’s Office of Information, Press and Publicity.

At the SICA meeting, member countries will also discuss issues such as the slowing economy, trade and culture and ways to strengthen this integrationist organization which is made up of the following countries: Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama as sitting members, the Dominican Republic as an associated state and Spain, Mexico and Taiwan as observers. On Saturday May 31, the president will leave the Dominican Republic for Madrid, Spain where he will participate in important meetings with business people as well as national and international investors.

According to his work Schedule, on Monday June 2 the president will then travel to Rome to attend a conference, held under the auspices of the United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture (FAO), to discuss the global crisis provoked by the spike in basic food prices. The meeting will take place in Rome on June 3-5. The FAO has called leaders from around the world to debate and discuss the possible solutions in response to these increasing world food prices.

The opening of this meeting will be overseen by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI will send a special message. The Italian president and the head of the FAO will also speak at the opening of the 3-day meeting. President Luis Inacio (Lula) da Silva of Brazil, France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Italy’s Giorgio Napolitano and Argentine President Cristina Fernández, among other world leaders, have confirmed their attendance. Members of the private sector, civil society and non-governmental organizations will also attend.

President Fernández will be accompanied by First Lady Margarita Cedeño de Fernández, Foreign Minister Carlos Morales Troncos, Administrative Minister of the Presidency Luis Manuel Bonnetti, Agriculture Minister Salvador Jiménez, Economy Minister Vicente Bengoa, Environment Minister Omar Ramírez and Press Director Rafael Núñez, among others.

Traveling with the president from the private sector will include Carlomagno González, chicken producer; Miguel de Moya, rice producer; Eric Rivero from the dairy sector; Felix García, an agro-exporter; Erno Durán a banana producer and José Miguel Bonetti, basic fatty foods business person.

Once the meeting ends, President Fernández will travel to Barcelona where he will spend several days in meetings with potential investors. He will return to the country on Monday evening, June 9th.