March 30, 2026
Ambassador believes in baseball diplomacy
Dominican Republic’s Reyes builds economic and cultural bridges
- Name: Edward Anibal Perez Reyes
- Title: Ambassador of the Dominican Republic
- URL: https://jpn.mirex.gob.do/
- Hometown: Santo Domingo
- Years in Japan: Since April 2025
Career diplomat Edward Anibal Perez Reyes was once told by a mentor that Tokyo was the best posting a senior diplomat could receive, and the Dominican Republic’s new ambassador to Japan now fully agrees. “Japan is a richly rewarding place, and I have set my target to visit all 47 prefectures before I leave,” he said, “and so far I have visited 13 of them.”
Since arriving in April last year, Reyes has focused on investment opportunities between Japan and the Dominican Republic while also ensuring that they fulfill his country’s steadfast commitments to nature and sustainability: “We are a country of beautiful people, with a very good spirit of community, and of course we are very well known for our service economy, especially led by our tourism sector, a sector we are ensuring remains sustainable and eco-friendly.”
Ecotourism leader
The Dominican Republic has the world’s most protected nature reserves in terms of population and area, comprising over 26% of its landmass and 30% of its marine environment — and these are set to increase in the future. These areas include the UNESCO-designated Madre de las Aguas and Jaragua-Bahoruco-Enriquillo biosphere reserves, both protecting important land and marine ecosystems, and 29 national parks. “The biosphere being protected by UNESCO was a step we have wanted to take for a long time,” Reyes said. “We take great pride in our beautiful country, so it was a priority of the Dominican people that this land cannot be touched, and be preserved for future generations.”
Reyes concedes that it can be challenging to balance mass tourism with environmental protection, but believes the Dominican Republic is now finding harmony in what is becoming a symbiotic relationship: “Our first step in tourism was all-inclusive tourism, and that affected the ecosystem, so we have now created more structure and made it more regulated — we are now concentrating on recycling and water preservation, on ecotourism. We have a lot of beautiful mountains and coastlines, and we are now in the process of making tourism a 100% sustainable venture.”
Free trade zones
While ecotourism remains an important foundation of the economy, drawing over 12 million nature-seekers annually to a nation of just over 10 million people, the Dominican Republic also has ample opportunity for partnering with economies such as Japan in more diversified areas such as making medical devices and semiconductors and the development of critical minerals.
“We have the investment experience and a well-developed free-trade-zone ecosystem that provides incentives to Japanese companies to come to the Dominican Republic and to use our experience in advanced manufacturing in medical devices. We have, for example, eight of the 16 largest medical device companies already operating there, and we now export all over the world,” Reyes said. “We are very well located geographically, we have open markets, and we are trying to get Japanese companies to be more involved in all these opportunities.”
Along with being a leading exporter of gold, cacao and cigars, the Dominican Republic is also expecting to announce deposits of critical minerals, which it hopes to partner with the United States in developing and exporting, making it a leading player in the region for rare-earth exports, offering further opportunities for investment and partnership in development.
Reyes believes the Dominican Republic has compelling advantages for Japan to invest in it: “The Dominican Republic is also a very politically stable country — we’ve been a consolidated democracy for more than 60 years, general elections every four years — we have received the most direct overseas investment in our region, and we have a very healthy growing economy in a growing region. Our relations with Japan are very good on all levels. We try to solve a lot of problems together, not only for the Dominican Republic, but for the region as well. We are in a good spot, because we are a leader in the region, so we have a lot of areas of cooperation.”
Baseball diplomacy
Reyes sees other opportunities to build bridges between the two countries in areas that are particular to both nations: “I know Japan loves baseball, and I think baseball unites both societies. We are working to bring together the commissioners of baseball from Japan and the Dominican Republic, and we want to put together different events to highlight the Dominican players here in Japan and at the same time do something similar in the Dominican Republic to promote our relationship with Japan.”
With nearly every Japanese baseball team boasting Dominican players, Reyes hopes to hold cultural events at games across Japan to promote Dominican culture and friendship and highlight their shared values through baseball. “We’ll be having ‘Dominican Days’ in the baseball stadiums,” he said. “Starting this April in Hiroshima, we’ll be having music from the Dominican Republic, Dominican food, videos on the big screen … and I’ll be throwing the first ball.”
The embassy is also facilitating Dominican sculptor Juan Trinidad’s “Trascendencia” exhibition at the Matsumoto City Museum of Art in Nagano from Feb. 11 to April 13 and later in the year will host famed Dominican muralists in Osaka, who will create murals to celebrate the success of the Expo 2025.
Time to know Japan
Reyes likes to travel by train when he has time to help immerse himself in Japanese culture: “I was recently at a small festival in Kitahiroshima (in Hiroshima Prefecture) learning how to plant rice, and I was in Hokkaido recently getting to know that part of Japan, but usually I’m too busy. But as I said, I’ve set a plan to visit every prefecture before I leave — I love to travel around.”
For the immediate future, Reyes is focused on building bridges and believes time is in short supply in a world facing rapid change: “Our countries are now affected by different measures, such as increasing unilateralism for example, and we have to meet that challenge — but every time we sit at a table and realize diplomacy is the way, I am are very proud of these little moments. You know diplomacy is good for everybody, and that feeds your soul.”
