Telecommunications company Tricom announced yesterday that it would invest RD$500 million to increase cellular coverage throughout the southern and north-eastern regions of the country, and that they would be extending their domestic and corporate telephone network. Speaking at yesterday’s Euromoney and Latin Finance forum on investment in the Caribbean, held in La Romana yesterday, Tricom’s Carl Carlson explained that this plan would allow Tricom to bolster its market share and strengthen an infrastructure valued at US$900 million. The forum was launched by President Hipolito Mejia and Jamaican Prime Minister R J Patterson and opened on 8 May in La Romana.
Orlando Jorge Mera, president of the Dominican Telecommunications Institute (INDOTEL) highlighted the importance of the telecommunications industry in the Dominican economy, which currently accounts for 7% of the GDP and is responsible for 33% of the country’s economic growth. In his inauguration speech, President Mejia expressed his belief that the Dominican economy’s 6.5% average increase in GDP over the last seven years is the largest instance of economic growth in Latin America, and repeated his statement quoted in yesterday’s DR1 Daily News that the country’s economic future is bright despite recent difficulties.