Central Bank Governor Hector Valdez Albizu announced the Dominican economy grew 5.1% in 2019, despite the drought and pronounced drop in tourism arrivals, the main source of foreign exchange for the country.
Valdez Albizu said that inflation was 3.66%. He said this was below the range established by the authorities for the year.
During the press conference on Tuesday, 28 January 2020, Valdez Albizu stressed that the Dominican Republic is a leader in economic growth in the region. He explained that the sectors contributing most to the economic performance are construction (10.5%), financial services (9%), energy and water (7.4%), transport (5.3%), health (4.3%), agriculture (4.1%), trade (3.8%), mining and quarrying (3.4%) and local manufacturing (2.7%).
National exports grew by 8.7%, with gold exports standing out with an expansion of 13.5%. Remittances totaled US$7.08 billion, 9.1% more than in 2018. Regarding foreign direct investment, the official explained that it reached US$3.01 billion, for an increase of 18.8% over the previous year.
In 2019, explained Váldez Albizu, 133,713 new jobs were created and the unemployment rate closed the last quarter of 2019 at 5.9%.
However, tourism revenues decreased by 1.2% and were US$7.46 billion between January and December last year, when the country received 7.5 million tourists. In 2019, the country was affected by a negative media campaign related to the death of American tourists in hotels in the first half of 2019. Local authorities attributed the deaths to natural causes, but a negative press campaign speculations did much harm and thousands of bookings were canceled. A United States FBI toxicology report, confirmed the reasons for the deaths, but the damage had been done.
Imports also fell slightly, by 0.4%, to US$20.28 billion in 2019, due to the decline in international oil prices.
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Banco Central
29 January 2020