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Skriven 2006-10-25 23:31:40 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0610252) for Wed, 2006 Oct 25
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President Bush Welcomes President Fernandez of the Dominican Republic to
the White House
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
October 25, 2006

President Bush Welcomes President Fernandez of the Dominican Republic to
the White House
The Oval Office

President's Remarks view

˙˙˙˙˙ In Focus: Global Diplomacy

2:20 P.M. EDT

PRESIDENT BUSH: Bienvenidos a mi amigo, the President of the Dominican
Republic. I'm proud to be with a strong leader who is focused on reform and
rule of law and prosperity.

The President informed me that the economy of the Dominican Republic grew
by 9 percent last year. And I want to congratulate you, Mr. President.

We talked about how to continue economic growth and vitality. It's in the
interests of the United States that the Dominican Republic have a strong
economy. We talked about the need for us to help with the multilateral
institutions, to -- for them to work with this government to help with cash
flows and cash demands so that this economy can continue its growth and
strength.

We talked DR-CAFTA, and how important this piece of legislation is to the
people of the Dominican Republic and to the people of the United States.
And I assured the President that we will implement DR-CAFTA as quickly as
possible, as soon as possible. And to that end, I have my trade minister,
Ambassador Susan Schwab, here to make sure that we both heard the message
of the President, that this was a very important piece of legislation and
that we have committed -- our government has committed to working with you,
Mr. President, to get this done as quickly as possible.

Y por fin, we talked about the need for us to work closely on drug
trafficking. The United States of America must continue to work to diminish
the demand for drugs, and we are. As well, we want to work with our
partners in the hemisphere, particularly the Dominican Republic, to
interdict the drugs and to help these countries be able to avoid and fight
off the scourge of drugs, because there is a direct correlation between
drugs and crime, and the more we can cut down on drug use and drug
trafficking and drug supplies, the easier it will be for respective
countries to protect their people.

Mr. President, I appreciate very much your presence here. I thank you for
your leadership in the hemisphere. I appreciate the advice you have given
me on how we can work together to make sure our own neighborhood is secure
and peaceful and hopeful. Welcome.

PRESIDENT FERNANDEZ: (As translated.) I thank you very much, Mr. President.
It's a pleasure to be here. And I want to thank President Bush for the warm
welcome that he has given me, along with my delegation, here to the Oval
Office of the White House.

As the President indicated, we have touched on a number of issues of mutual
interest to our two countries. First of all, DR-CAFTA; its implementation,
hopefully, will take place very soon. We are now in the final phase. This
is a bill now before our own congress in the Dominican Republic. We are
dealing with some minor legal amendments, and our two teams have been
working very hard to obtain a speedy implementation of DR-CAFTA. President
Bush and we have agreed to the need to accelerate this process to benefit
both our countries.

Second, as President Bush indicated, we have also touched on the issues of
disbursements by multilateral institutions. These are extremely important
in order to help with the progress of countries like the Dominican Republic
to establish confidence, to maintain the confidence in our countries, and
also to help us sustain ability of our economies.

The Dominican Republic has agreements with these multilateral institutions,
and we hope that they will be honored soon with regard to these
disbursements. The sooner they are complied with the better it will be for
us.

And third, of course, we have touched on a number of issues such as the
issue of drug trafficking, as President Bush mentioned, the issue of crime,
the issue of the good relations that we have had for so many years between
the United States and the Dominican Republic, the issue of good governance,
the issue of respect for human rights, and a number of other things.

It has been a very good meeting.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Gracias por su tiempo.

END 2:27 P.M. EDT

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