The economic section of the El Caribe reports that dollars are scarce on the market. Commercial banks were offering RD$46-RD$47 for every dollar, up more than a peso over Monday’s rate. But most exchange houses did not have any dollars for sale. According to El Caribe, the cause of the new devaluation was the RD$100-billion emission by the Central Bank towards the end of last year to pay the 13th salary of the government employees and the interest on certificates of deposit sold throughout the year. Economist Frederic Emam Zade points out that suspending the emission of currency will put a stop to the devaluation of the currency. Emam Zade told reporters that the emission of RD$7 billion last December, along with the “doble sueldo” for Christmas, have all gone in search of dollars. “The Central Bank is looking for the guilty that do not exist, since they alone are responsible for the rise of the dollar,” he added. Another economist, Leonardo Aguilera of the Centro Economico del Cibao, told reporters that for every peso of devaluation, the government has to find one billion pesos more for payment of the foreign debt.
El Caribe highlights that in the 2004 National Budget, the government allotted US$883.3 million to pay the foreign debt, taking into account an exchange rate of RD$35 to US$1, which was the imposed official rate at the time of the budget’s approval, or rather RD$30.92 billion. Aguilera told El Caribe that the economic crisis besieging the country is not caused by any external shock, but by the monetary and exchange policies of the government.