00:00I take a venture to guess that probably fewer people know that Eaton has manufactured in the DR for over
00:0740 years.
00:08The report in Aena is home to five of the ten largest medical device manufacturers in the world.
00:15The largest export market is the United States for those medical devices.
00:19And I would say that really, how has the DR proven that, A, you're ready to take this next step
00:28into the semiconductor industry,
00:30and what prompted the leaders from the university community or government and the private sector to converge here at Southern
00:38Pan-West?
00:40Well, thank you.
00:47Thank you, Ian, and we're honored to be a part of this panel with some of the interesting people.
00:53First of all, as you have been saying, the Dominican Republic has proven to be a stable partner for the
01:02United States
01:02and for the manufacturing community for the last 15 years.
01:06We're not only one of the principal suppliers of medical devices and electronic components on several other industries,
01:13and we're now making the push for the semiconductor industry.
01:16That's why our president, too, last year participated at this conference,
01:21and we initiated the national strategy to bring Seneca Dodgers into the Dominican Republic.
01:27And the proof is there.
01:29We're the fastest growing economy in Latin America for the last 15 years.
01:33Right now we're growing 4.5 when the rest of the region has an average of 2.0.
01:38So we're doing that with 60 years ongoing on peaceful transfer of power and with a robust democracy
01:46that has an independent judiciary that functions.
01:50So that's the framework.
01:51And now we have a window of opportunity that the Dominican state,
01:58I say state because it's the government, but it's also the private sector,
02:01some of the principal associations for enterprises and free zones are with us here today
02:08in this delegation.
02:11And what we'll do is to present the decision makers of the semiconductor industry
02:17with the ability to make a robust play in the supply chain.
02:24The world is changing.
02:25It's changing what 20 to 30 years ago function, having all these strategic components
02:32of an essential industry, the semiconductors,
02:35and now the artificial intelligence industry cannot be supplied from one place in the world
02:41and only from Southeast Asia.
02:44And we're only going to expand and try to understand all the risks involved
02:49and having its supply chain sustained by such a sole provider, practically,
02:56or a sole feature as a provider.
02:58The western hemisphere is part of the U.S. business ecosystem,
03:03is part of the U.S. political ecosystem.
03:06So we're not going anywhere.
03:08We're improving to be stable parts.
03:10With those data that Ian and now myself have shared,
03:14we have the infrastructure reports.
03:18We have the little framework.
03:20We have the proven economic capacity.
03:22We have associations with universities like Purdue,
03:26with universities like Arizona State,
03:28that are already training our people,
03:30that are already working on this issue.
03:33And we have proven to be able to do advanced manufacturing.
03:38And I finish with this.
03:40We're willing to incentivize investment.
03:4330 years ago, 35 years ago,
03:45we took the tourism industry and we incentivized it.
03:49Today, 40 years later,
03:51it's difficult to talk about tourism anywhere in the world
03:54without talking about it.
03:56And that's what we're willing to do with semiconductors.
03:59In a framework for five, ten, the next 20 years,
04:02we're willing to do it.
04:03And that's why we're here and working from you guys,
04:06trying to team this.
04:07And that's why we're thankful for the years.
04:09And our coverage authority,
04:11we signed an annual building in Montreal,
04:12where we established a few things
04:14that we're going to be doing together,
04:16because Arizona's story is an incredible story
04:19that we want to learn from and we want to jump.
04:22Thank you very much.
04:23Thank you, Mr. Joe.
04:24Abby.
