Economist Pedro Silverio analyzes the gains during the Medina administration named “Export Year 2018.” He says the country continues to be primarily an exporter of raw material. Stats for the first nine months of the year show that around 35% of national exports are gold exports.
Farm exports are 12%, only a slight improvement over 2017. Bananas and cacao beans account for two thirds of the farm exports. Cacao beans had a good year with 76.5US$ in the first nine months of the year, for a 67.4% increase compared to January-September 2017.
Industrialized exports and granulated sugar continues to be the main industrialized export. Duty free industrial free zones represent 50% of the total exports, with US$4.53 billion, of which 3.5% is farm products, and the rest industrial exports. Medical devices are the main export with 20%, followed by electrical produces with 19.7%, apparel 17.5%, tobacco manufactured 14.4%, similar to previous years.
Exports are estimated to grow 10% this year, which would exceed the average for the past five years, but below that of 2011, when exports grew 22%.
Silverio says that in his inaugural speech in 2012, President Danilo Medina recognized the need to implement a change of economic model to reach higher development levels. “Six years have passed since that speech and the old economic model is still intact. That is why it is not a surprise that even in the year dedicated to exports, these continue trapped by the network of administrative obstacles and bad public policies.”
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Diario Libre
17 December 2018
