Eleven years later, he is still eking out a living on the same batey, or labour encampment, where he arrived, with no money, nine fingers, and a foot-long vertical gash on his chest that has been sewn up like a mailbag.
“Can you help me get a cédula?” he asks,
“Confidence in the daily operations of the bank survived because of the way the business elite has covered the deficit with their own resources,” President Fernández told the FT.
Even so Banco del Progreso’s difficulties have been an uncomfortable reminder of the crisis in 2003 at Baninter, then the country’s
Back then, his main claim to fame had been his role as right-hand man to a former Marxist president, Juan Bosch. In the early 1970s he had helped Mr Bosch form the left-wing pro-Cuban Dominican Liberation Party, the principal aim of which was to campaign against US influence in
Cafta threatened to remove that competitive advantage and bestow it on countries such as Nicaragua and Honduras, where poverty levels are so severe that they could undercut even the wages paid to Dominicans.
Hugo Guiliani Cury, who had recently headed the Dominican Republic’s mission to the World Trade Organisation’s talks
Even President Leonel Fernández likes to compare the potential of the Samaná area in the north-east with that of Monte Carlo.
It is easy to understand the emphasis. Over the past 25 years the industry has grown apace. Tourist arrivals have soared since charter flights brought long-haul package holidaymakers from