When a call is made from outside the country to the Dominican Republic, it represents hard currency income for the nation’s coffers. When a call is made from the Dominican Republic to, say, New York City, this represents an outflow of hard currency. While the telecommunications sector has sustained its growth for the past several years, reaching 17.6% of the GDP, some of these gains are offset by the exodus of hard currency leaving the country to pay for phone calls. This has coincided with the democratization of phone service, with even the very poor now being able to own at least a cell phone. As a result, Dominicans are calling abroad more.
As a result, over the past seven years, there has been a fall in phone dollars, way down from the all-time high of US$183 million in 1994. In 2001 the figure was just US$60 million. Fortunately, there seems to have been a slow recovery over recent times with 2004 (September) showing an increase to US$118 million.