Dominican republic joins central American integration system

The Dominican Republic has officially joined the Central American Integration System (SICA) as a full member and will assume the rotating presidency in January, local media reported Thursday. Dominican Deputy Foreign Minister for Economic Affairs and Trade Negotiations Cesar Dargam said recently that the bloc accepted his country's report on the institutional steps it took to comply with the National Constitution and the Protocol of Tegucigalpa, the Listin Diario daily reported. He said a special working group has been formed to organize the transfer of SICA's rotating presidency to the Dominican Republic and the Dominican government has also constituted a technical team to coordinate the work. Founded in December 1991, SICA was designed to help push forward democracy in the Central American region, promote sustainable economic, social and political development in member countries, which are Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Belize, Panama and the Dominican Republic.