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#HOTCS: Regis Batista, Santo Domingo

Regis Batista

“After completing my MBA in Canada and returning to the Dominican Republic, I had the idea of bringing in a well-known Canadian grocery and household products brand to the country. In my second year as a Canadian trade commissioner, I met with the supermarket chain that owns the brand and gave them a brief presentation about the Dominican Republic’s retail sector. They were interested, but the truth was at that moment the economy in the Dominican was not the best, and the exchange rate was very high, so they decided to wait, which I understood perfectly.

“A year later, everything changed drastically for the better. The exchange rate decreased substantially, so I contacted the Canadian company again, provided them with new information and then introduced them to the biggest retailer in the Dominican at the time. I arranged a meeting between the two parties at a trade show in Montréal, and six months later this major Canadian brand was being sold in the Dominican Republic. Up until this point, there were very few Canadian products being sold here. Trade was mainly in commodities, or in bulk products that didn’t have a Canadian brand. So having successfully brought these Canadian-branded products here, I felt very good to see that all the effort was worth it.”

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