The Central Bank of the Dominican Republic (BCRD) reports the entry of US$7.5 billion in remittances between January and September 2023. That’s RD$425.6 billion, or about 40% of the nation’s national budget for 2023.
The total for the first nine months of the year in remittances is 3.9% above last year’s figures for the same period.
The Central Bank expects remittances to reach US$10.0 billion by year’s end.
According to the BCRD, the growing US economy is partly responsible for the increase since about 85% of remittances originate in the United States, where the service sector continues to grow.
Spain is also an important contributor of remittances with 5.4%. There is a large Dominican expat population in Spain.
As a result of all of this, the country’s hard currency reserves have nearly reached US$16 billion or 13.2% of GDP, and provide the Dominican Republic with a healthy financial buffer of 5.9 months of imports, above the requirements of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), says the Central Bank.
And, as if that was not enough good news, Minister of Tourism David Collado announced that 478.000 tourists arrived by air last September, an 11% increase over September 2022. There were also 67,000 more cruise line passenger arrivals. For now, the “historic number” of 7,625,986 tourists for the first nine months of the year far surpasses, by 24%, the numbers from last year.
Read more in Spanish:
Central Bank
Ministry of Tourism
16 October 2023