US Dollar reason to play with prices

simpson Homer

Bronze
Nov 14, 2003
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Its hard to believe how people who have any kind of business in the Dominican Republic are able to play with the prices of food item. Most of them use as excuse Oh! the US Dollar or some times having different excuse saying oh the gas!

But when the gas and US dollar low the price nothing else get low.

My question is for those who are actually in the DR, What item of food has low the price after the dollar and gas lowed the prices?

Homer Simpson

PS: This question doesn't apply for those who can't be mature to answer.
 
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Jerry K

New member
Jan 1, 2002
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The answer is nothing. Merchants all claim they've been slow raising prices over the past few months and are only trying to catch up. Of course the price of items that have been around awhile and were stocked when the peso was in the low 20's are going up too.
Had a conversation with the POP Coke dist. today, they have across the board price increase coming this week. So much for prices going down.
 

Pib

Goddess
Jan 1, 2002
3,668
20
38
www.dominicancooking.com
I don't blame them, really.

You import bolitas adivinadoras that cost, free domicile, US$1.00, the dolar is at 16. The dolar spirals up to almost 60 at one point, and you, like everyone else, have zero trust in the government. Are you going to sell your bolitas adivinadoras at 40/1 when you don't know if you will be able to re-stock when the dolar bounces back to 60? Me? I wouldn't.
 

Bolt

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Jun 12, 2002
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Thats true when one thinks that when the peso stood at say 20 to a dollar it was hard to imigine it would be 25 or 30. Therefore, there is a lag of many months in some cases while old inventory is sold off and new imports have to be paid at higher prices plus shipping time.

Recent months (sorry weeks) have seen the peso shoot past 45, 50 then 55!

Retailers were somewhat caught off gaurd by the sudden price increases since Xmas hoping the IMF agreement would have been activated a lot sooner and therefore they have a lot of catching up to do once the prices stabilise. I find it somewhat amusing when Hippo forced the prices down over the Xmas period and asked "but why hadnt the retail prices dropped?" On this occasion retailers knew fulll well that the low rates that were forced on the Peso had a very short life and 3 or 4 weeks is no where long enough to see stabilty. Even now assuming the peso never went over 45 for the rest of the year it would take many months before we could start to see genuine price reductions on the high street which will almost certainly be absorbed by further increases in ITBIS and other taxes. One can only hope for stabilitly at the current level but personaly, it is very unlikey to hold for long.

What we saw at Xmas was intervention by Hippo to force a better rate on the Peso created this rejection spike to 55. He brought this on himself. The good news is intervention spikes are almost always short lived and the Peso has moved down to what is now new support on top of the old main trend line resistance it was sat in back in early December. The next week or so will tell us if the peso will stay in this old main trend in which case it must go back and test the old support which comes in at 36. If the peso does not fall below 40 then it has taken on a very much steeper new trend for the coming weeks and will be back to 55 and beyond very quickly indeed. If you have dollars i would wait for a week or so before buying more Pesos. 40 is key!!

Note the information I have used is based on http://finance.yahoo.com/m5?s=USD&t=DOP&a=1&c=1 and probably gives the best average for street rates. Over the weekend last, prices went artificailly low as change houses knew rates were going down but had to err on the side on caution as the banks were closed. On those occasions you will always get a better rate using an ATM debit card. The opposite is true too when we have a rapid rise week then come weekend the exchanges will err to the higher side instead.
 
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Criss Colon

Platinum
Jan 2, 2002
21,843
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yahoomail.com
"Dirt" Cheap!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I bought 10 bags of "Tierra Negra" (Black Dirt) at a plant nursery near my home about 1 year ago.I paid 30 pesos a 100 pound bag.Last week I bought 3 bags,still costs 30 pesos a bag!There is a strange irony there,I just can't quite put my finger on it!Something like,everything in the Country has tripled in cost,except the Country it's self! Cris Colon