Economist Pavel Isa Contreras says Dominican exports for the first two months of the year were up 8.3% compared to the same period in 2018. Exports reached US$1.5 billion, or US$116 million more than for Jan-Feb 2018. The data is from the Dominican Customs Agency (DGA) and reported in the newsletter of the Dominican Observatory of International Trade (Observatorio Dominicano de Comercio Internacional – ODCI) at INTEC university for the January-March 2019 quarter. The export watch group follows Dominican exports. The Central Bank has forecast exports this year will reach a record US$12 billion.
The ODCI highlights that exports need to grow at a pace of 10% through 2030, or two times the average growth of the past decade, in order to catch up with the average pace of Latin American countries. Isa said that even when low the recent 8.3% growth is considerably higher than export growth in previous years. Exports with largest growth were gold (US$327 million), electric devices (US$160 million), cigars (US$137 million), medical devices (US$134 million), iron and steel (US$76 million) fruits (US$60 million) and plastics (US$50 million).
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ODCI
11 April 2019