Best biz in the DR to invest into is heavy construction equipment.
You can have your own mechanics for cheap to maintain and service the fleet for peanuts.
You can operate a construction company with a very loooooooow budget on expenses and hiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh profits.
You can also make a good bundle of cash on rentals.
The key is that you must import the equipment (used as new will pay a VAT of ad valorem) yourself, not buy it locally.
After a max of 5 years you must sell to renew your fleet.
But if you really wanted to make wads of cash in the DR, all you need is to make a contract with Nissan or Mitsubishi to use their engines on locally built forklifts.
About 80% of the parts outside of the engine and tranny on a Forklift come from second line manufacturers to most brands on the market.
There's a multi-billion dollar market for forklifts in our side of the world today. As economies develop, so too the need increases for these important machines.
It's cheaper to lease/finance a new one with very little worries on parts or service for 3 to 4 years, than venture with a used one.
That's why you see Caterpillar forklifts with Nissan and other brand engines. Pistons, hoses, trannies, tires, etc...
The initial investment into fabrication is big but the returns are even larger.
The other choice for the DR lies in localized manufacturing of motorcycles. Big bucks there.
If investors are shy about these things and the know how, there's always RE rental income.
Develop compact Japanese-styled apartment/studios with minimal space wasted. The rental income is very high on these.
The other good biz would be to establish a brand of footwear manufactured all by hand in the DR, but to custom made molds of clients shipped to the factory.
Hand labor in the DR remains veeeeeery cheap. Producing high quality items hand made is rather easy and profitable overseas.
Access to the US market is open and free for these things from the DR. Under the FTA we signed.
Just to name a few...