In the Dominican Republic’s capital of Santo Domingo, the country’s leading industrial trade group has publicly thrown its support behind a new set of regulatory measures launched by the General Directorate of Customs (DGA) aimed at governing the flow of goods in transit to neighboring Haiti. The Association of Industries of the Dominican Republic (AIRD) has also praised the agency’s ongoing work to bring greater clarity to the operational rules that govern this cross-border commercial activity.
Mario Pujols, executive vice president of AIRD, highlighted that close collaborative coordination between DGA and other national government agencies is a non-negotiable foundation for these new rules to succeed. This alignment, he explained, is critical to guaranteeing full regulatory compliance and shoring up oversight of all cross-border trade operations moving between the two Caribbean nations.
Representing the Dominican industrial sector, AIRD has long pushed for three key improvements to border trade governance: clearly outlined procedural steps, fixed timeframes for completing transactions, and enforceable penalties for actors that violate established rules. The association argues that building this predictable regulatory framework will do more than protect legitimate formal trade—it will also prevent costly disruptive breakdowns in cross-border supply chains.
The new DGA measures address many of the core demands put forward by the industrial sector. Key provisions include a mandatory requirement that all transit cargo requests be submitted to authorities at least 24 hours before shipment, a formal hard deadline for goods to exit Dominican territory en route to Haiti, and stepped up measures for cargo inspection, security screening, and legal compliance checks.
Pujols further emphasized that sustained open channels of communication between government regulators and private sector businesses remain essential to a smooth rollout of the new rules. This ongoing dialogue will allow trading companies to fully grasp adjustments to protocols and revise their operational workflows to align with the updated requirements in a timely manner.
Going forward, AIRD expressed confidence that the new regulatory package, paired with DGA’s publicly stated zero-tolerance policy for trade irregularities at the border, will deliver meaningful improvements to oversight. The group expects these changes will ultimately foster a far more orderly, transparent cross-border trade ecosystem along the shared Dominican-Haitian frontier.