Mauricio Claver-Carone, president of the InterAmerican Development Bank, told Diario Libre that he is optimistic the Dominican economy will recover in 2021. Nevertheless, he said he does not expect the recovery to put the country back to where it was before Covid-19. IDB estimates the DR will post a 4% growth in 2021. “This is positive but yet not sufficient for all that has been lost to Covid, so we will all have to work extra,” he said.
He said the IDB is in talks with the Abinader administration to lend US$23 million for the country to purchase 2.2 million Covid-19 vaccines. Another US$16 million would be to create the refrigeration capacity to store the vaccines. The loan is part of a general aid package the IDB makes available for Latin America and the Caribbean. Claver-Carone estimated 34 million jobs have been lost in the region.
“We want to hurry up with the Caribbean because their economies are so focused on tourism; so that we can move quickly so that they can reactivate this fully so that no more jobs are lost and there is no more social pressure,” he said.
Claver-Carone said the soft loan is part of the bank’s efforts to back the recovery of countries in the Caribbean, hard hit by the devastating effects Covid-19 has had on travel. He said the Dominican Republic is in a better position than others because it has diversified its economy.
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Diario Libre
Diario Libre
21 December 2020