DR1 Daily News - Dominican Republic

Economic writer Hector Linares says that the Dominican Republic would have grown more than the low 2.4% in 2023 if capital spending by the Abinader administration had been greater. In an analysis for El Caribe, he points out that the growth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was almost exclusively the responsibility of monetary policy, which during the second half of 2023 became expansive, providing incentives to boost the economy through increased credit. As a result of this flexible posture, some RD$184 billion were channeled at interest rates not higher than 9% annual interest through the different financial intermediaries that granted loans to the productive sectors and households (consumption).

He explains that the Central Bank had to tread a fine line in its monetary policy to at the same time control inflation. Until the first half of 2023, the Central Bank restrained...