Quito, Ecuador. – The presidents of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, and Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, announced that they had reached an agreement to start talks and establish an alliance between the two countries to assess the potentiality of the natural gas field and increase its supply for the benefit of sustainable development. Of both nations.
“With the Dominican Republic we are united by a deep friendship and we share the same democratic values and respect for the rule of law and institutionality. We have agreed to start talks for an alliance between the two countries with the objective of evaluating the repowering of the Amistad natural gas field to increase the supply of this resource for the benefit of the sustainable development of both nations,” said Lasso.
Also, he stressed that they have agreed on the interest of carrying out additional exploitation activities of Ecuadorian crude to satisfy the long-term needs of the Dominican Republic.
In the meeting, which took place before the start of the VI Meeting of the Alliance for Development in Democracy (ADD), the President of Ecuador said that he had a positive meeting with President Abinader to review the main issues of the bilateral relationship. and added that a great day of joint work awaits them today, together with Costa Rica and Panama.
“On March 25, I will have the pleasure of visiting the Dominican Republic to attend the Ibero-American Summit and receive the pro tempore presidency of this important regional integration mechanism. In 2024, Ecuador will host the Ibero-American Summit for the first time in its history,” he said.
And he added: “President Abinader has exercised an outstanding presidency and has set the bar very high during the last period that the president of the SEGIB has corresponded to. Ecuador will follow the path outlined and we will contribute new topics to the Ibero-American debate”.
Haiti problem
Lasso indicated that he spoke with President Abinader about the active role that Ecuador will play in the United Nations Security Council and, in particular, the priority that the treatment of the Haitian problem will have concerning its sovereignty and integrity.
In this regard, he said, both have agreed on the responsibility of the international community to seek lasting solutions that contribute to the democratic stability of Haiti.
“We have also discussed the interest in starting and accelerating negotiations for a free trade agreement between the Dominican Republic and Ecuador. In addition, we have discussed our coincidences in jointly and articulately addressing the challenge of migration, with a firm conviction to combat criminal structures and the smuggling of migrants,” Lasso reported.
President Abinader supports the exploitation of Natural Gas between both nations.
The Dominican head of state indicated that he supports and shares the ideas of the Ecuadorian president in terms of bilateral relations and the empowerment of Natural Gas, which would be a government-to-government relationship with state companies.
Abinader said that he also spoke with President Lasso about insecurity in Haiti, which he said affects all the countries of the American continent. He also said that they would try to work together on the problems of illegal migration that the continent has.
In addition, he stressed that in the meetings that he will hold with the president of Costa Rica, Rodrigo Chaves Robles, and the vice president of Panama, José Gabriel Carrizo, in the Alliance for Development in Democracy (ADD), they would try to ensure that the four countries that share the principles and ideas can be developed and that are of mutual benefit to each of the nations.
President Abinader said he was happy since they shared many of his principles of democracy, development, and economic growth.
He also explained that they would work so that Ecuadorian and Dominican business people could have a much greater relationship and economic activity between the two countries.
In this sense, he said that a commission of Dominican business people from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Industry and Commerce would meet in May to see some free trade agreements for different products of interest to Ecuador and the Dominican Republic.
