Dominican Economic Size Comparison

Here is a comprehensive comparison of the size of the Dominican economy vs. others in the region and the world. Every monetary figure is in US Dollars.

2004 estimated size of the global economy $55 trillion (that?s a lot of money!)

2004 estimated size of Dominican economy $55,680,000,000.

Dominican economy is 0.1% of the world?s economy.

2004 estimated size of the United States economy $12 trillion (the world?s largest)

Dominican economy is 0.46% of the size of the US economy.

69% of the world?s countries have economies that are smaller than the Dominican economy.

Dominican economy is the world?s 71st largest economy.

Dominican economy is the 10th largest economy in Latin America. Only the following countries/dependencies have larger economies than the DR (in economic ascending order):

Guatemala $59 billion
Puerto Rico $68 billion
Venezuela $145 billion
Peru $155 billion
Chile $169 billion
Colombia $281 billion
Argentina $483 billion
Mexico $1 Trillion
Brazil $1 Trillion

Santo Domingo metro area accounts for around 40% of the total Dominican economy or around $22 billion.

This makes the economy of the city of Santo Domingo alone roughly the size of the economy of Bolivia, the 107th largest economy of the world.

Thus, the economy of Santo Domingo alone is either at or bigger than the following select national economies of Latin America (in descending order):

Bolivia $22 billion
Panama $20 billion
Honduras $18 billion
Nicaragua $12 billion
Haiti $12 billion
Jamaica $11 billion
The Bahamas $5 billion

The economy of the city of Santo Domingo is larger than 54% of the world?s national economies.

Within the Caribbean archipelago region, the Dominican economy is the largest if we restrict to independent Caribbean nations, and the second largest if we include foreign dependencies, which would make Puerto Rico the largest at $68 billion.

The top 5 largest economy in the Caribbean (including dependencies) are:

Puerto Rico $68 billion
Dominican Republic $56 billion
Cuba $33 billion
Haiti $12 billion
Trinidad and Tobago $11 billion

Notice: The economy of the island of Hispaniola (Haiti and DR) is around $68 billion, roughly the size of Puerto Rico?s.

The top 5 largest economy in the Caribbean (excluding dependencies) are:

Dominican Republic $56 billion
Cuba $33 billion
Haiti $12 billion
Trinidad and Tobago $11 billion
Jamaica $11 billion

Notice, the Haitian economy is only 21% the size of the Dominican economy. Haiti and the Dominican Republic both have very close numbers of people, the DR is twice the size of Haiti in land mass, however, the Dominican economy is almost 5 times the size of Haiti?s and Santo Domingo?s economy alone is almost twice the size of Haiti?s national economy.

The economy of Santo Domingo alone at $22 billion is the Caribbean?s 4th largest economy, with only Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican national economies being larger.

Excluding dependencies, Santo Domingo would be the 3rd largest economy in the Caribbean, with only Cuba and the Dominican national economies being larger.

The Dominican Republic is the 5th largest U.S. commercial partner in Latin America and
traded more goods with the United States last year than larger economies like Argentina, Chile and Peru, according to Latin Business Chronicle.

In terms of agriculture, the Dominican Republic is the 3rd largest market for US products in Latin America.


World?s economies source:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html

Escott said:

Very interesting. More money for the government to squander and steal.

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Escott, you do know that the majority of the money in this country is not in the hands of the government....

Escott said:

Yes but they will take more from those that have so they have regardless of what is good for the populance. Do you disagree?

Escott

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To disagree to that is to commit suicide!

:rambo:

In any case, worst is the threat to tourism we are getting from a peculiar group of disgruntled people. This is something serious, if effective will not just hurt the Dominican economy, but also the businesses and economic interest of many expats.

A quote from the report says: "The informants said that the... entities carrying out the campaign call on European citizens not to visit the Dominican Republic, alleging that there is no security."

Another quote from the report says: ?This is an extremely dangerous campaign because, as it has gone on to the political and economic front, it seeks to discourage European tourists from traveling to the Dominican Republic,? according to the informants.

http://www.dominicantoday.com/app/article.aspx?id=5641

Joshua R said:

Seriously if Trujillo was still here or Balaguer we b topin the charts and probably if not most likly have a greater economy than most of the caribean and South American Countries so if the DR wants to become a stronger and richer country it would have to become a communism again with a strong leader

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1. We already have the largest economy in all of Central America, not just the Caribbean.

2. Our middle class (I'm only including upper middle class) and upper classes are the largest in numbers of all middle classes and upper classes of the Caribbean and Central America.

3. We import/export more with the United States than does Argentina, Peru, and other countries multiple times our size.

4. The economy is growing fast. Fast economic growth helps in increasing per capita income, which means a wealthier citizenry. This also means, an inevitable growth in the middle class and upper class.

Now that we got all of those facts out of the way, lets quickly elaborate on the issue you present.

Communism has never taken root in this country, thus going 'back' to communism is an incorrect term. Also, communism works well in theory, but please show everyone a real life example of a communistic society that works adequately. We got one west of our island and I can tell you most people here are not dying to go there. They are dreaming about capitalistic and democratic United States and Puerto Rico and we do get a sense of satisfaction in those segments of Dominican realities, life, and societies that resembles American style prosperity and economic system. Thus, communism might not take hold here anytime soon.

Although its true, proven by various studies, that the countries that make the best transition into a progressive democratic and capitalistic system are nations that were under the iron fist of a fascist dictatorship. Example of such countries dot the global landscape, among them being Chile, Spain, United Kingdom, and our modern day example is China.

In China, dictatorial rule mixed with capitalism has been brewing a dynamic economic miracle that is changing China from a backward nation to a highly progressive. Eastern China is considerably wealthier than western or central China. Eastern China is also the area that has been developing the most successful democratic inclined institutions and eastern Chinese are more inclined to demand more democracy from Beijin, more so than Chinese of other areas of China. All of this is the result of the increased affluence in eastern China. As per capita income increase, China will become more and more democratic, this has been proven time and again in other countries.

However, the Trujillo dictatorship was ended prematurely in the early 1960s. Thus, we don't have the advantage of such system preciding the democratization period, but we do have plenty of advantages regarding trade patterns, preferential treatment, trade agreements, and a growing economy.

Thus, we must focus on maintaining fast economic growth, which has been achieved lately, in order for the country to move upwards economically in a matter of a couple of generations. A generation is 20 years, assuming that economic growth for us from 2000 to 2040 averages 6% per year, this means that our per capita income would increase from a 2000 US$5,000 (approx) to US$32,768 per capita income in current dollars in 2040.

How progressive is this? Well, let's compare to the US per capita income. The US has a historical 2% economic growth average from its independence day up to the late 1990. In some years the American economic contracted and in other years the economy grew stupendously, the most recent time period of above average growth was the 1990s decade, but over its two centuries of existence, American economic growth has averaged 2% per annum. Let's assume the American economy averages 2% growth from 2000 to 2040. This means that American per capita income would increase from a 2000 US$30,000 (approx) to US$32,473 per capita income in current dollars in 2040.

In this simple model, the average wealth of the DR would actually supercede the average wealth of the US by an additional US$295. This is the convergence that economic theory actually predicts for fast growing developing countries, which are few since most developing countries have a dismal growth rate. Countries with a growth rate of 7% are few and far between, DR (thankfully) being one of them.

There are other variables that I have treated as being constant in this example, but this example shows clearly the importance of high economic growth. With high economic growth, the country would enrich itself to first world status in a matter of two generations, which is unbelievable, but this is precisely what happened with Japan. Japan was a poor country in the 1940s, but by 1970s Japan was already one of the world's wealthiest countries, due mostly to fast economic growth during those 30 years of capitalism and democratic principles.

The biggest problem we got is our neighbor Haiti, which is hardly growing economically. Haiti declined last year by 1% economically and has been declining for quite a few years. Assuming Haiti continues to decline, this means there will only be more migration pressures from Haiti to DR, which could jeopardize our economic growth and thus, our economic well being.

I'll conclude by saying that the way to prosperity is by increasing the prosperity that exist in the country. The only way of doing this relatively promptly is by embracing economic growth and this we are doing.

-NAL

Apart from Guatemala and Puerto Rico, according to your own list.

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My most recent post is based on 2005 data, where as previous post were not.

What fascist dictatorship did the United Kingdom escape from, Thatcher?

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A kingdom is a dictatorship and the UK has historically played with Mercantilism and later on, capitalism.

Very much on the lines of a fascist dictatorship.

Those lists are great fun to look at! In reality most countries left behind by the Dominincan Republic are either very poor African countries, or very very small countries.

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Not true, India and China (among many other Asian nations and quite a few Latin American nations in addition to African and some eastern Europeans) are much more behind the DR.

India and China alone are home to 2 billion people, or 33% of the world's population. Dominicans on average are better off than them, and this is not including all the other peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America and some Eastern European countries that are behind us, which would add up to above 60% of the global population of humans living in nations that are economically more impoverished than the DR.

-NAL

Nals, where do you get your figures from, or do you just think you're preaching to a bunch of ignoramuses here? Or would that be ignorami?

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Each country does has a Central Bank you know and they do post their own statistics.

I'd say Guatemala's economy as a whole is larger. It has a much more developed non FTZ manufacturing base (as well as a FTZ sector). There is abject rural poverty and exclusion so the GDP per capita might be smaller.

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Please, prove this.

Words such as "I'd say" are highly opinionated and an opinion are a dime a dozen.

Everybody has an opinion on everything.

Costa Rica's GDP per capita is higher than the DR's. Not sure about Panama or El Salvador.

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That makes Costa Rica the wealthiest country in Central American isthmus, but its certainly not the largest economy.

The other Central American economies are in such bad shape that the fact that the DR is above them should not be a source of pride.

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With all due respect, this is nonesense.

If we are going to stop comparing countries because some countries have a bad economy, then I guess the first world has nothing to be proud of in terms of their riches, since the rest of the world appears problem plagued.

-NAL

Chirimoya said:

Right, I admit my hunch about Guatemala was wrong, but look what I found in the process of verification. Source: UNDP 2005 GDP index. I include Caribbean and Mexico as well as Central American nations, for context.

30. Barbados
47. Costa Rica I knew!
49. St Kitts and Nevis
50. Bahamas
52. Cuba. Hmmm.
53. Mexico
56. Panama. Yep.
60. Antigua and Barbuda
66. Grenada (pre hurricane, presumably)
70. Dominica (see above0
76. St Lucia
87. St Vincent and the Grenadines
91. Belize - surely some mistake! At this point I scrolled back up to see if I missed the DR!


95. Dominican Republic

104. El Salvador
112. Nicaragua
116. Honduras
117. Nicaragua

This list is quite revealing about nations with smaller populations, too. Even if they are not productive, mainly due to their small population they display healthier economic indicators. (See other thread about comparing productivity in the DR with India and China).

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Ha!

We are comparing two different things, Chiri.

What you are quoting is Economic Development, which is different from Economic growth.

Economic development includes all sorts of other indicators, such as infant mortality rate, literacy rate, etc, whereas economic growth is nothing more than the economy without those added weight.

There is a little bit of a debate since in many instances of economic development comparisons, Mexico has been above the US, not to mention economically inferior Cuba being higher than much more superior DR or even Mexico!

I have a hard time believing that Cubans are better off than Mexicans. How can a country with empty store shelves be better than Mexico, a country with all the conveniences of the world readily available?

How about freedom of speech? Ability to elect their own leaders? The right to travel anywhere within a country? The right to have family members visit from abroad?

All of those lacking for Cubans and yet they are in a better position than Mexicans?

Hmm..

-NAL