Public debt in the Dominican Republic has more than quadrupled in the past 12 years, according to the Regional Center for Sustainable Economic Strategies (Crees). At US$2.8 billion in 2000, by year’s end 2012 the DR’s public debt stood at US$12.9 billion.
Crees spokesman Ernesto Selman said that in 2012, the government paid 17.6% in interest payments of its total revenues. That is above the recommended 15%. 22.5% of government revenues will be needed just to service the debt in 2015, and increasing to 23.8% by 2016, says the economic think tank.
Selman said that the comprehensive fiscal reform supported by the private sector as part of the National Development Strategy needs to involve lower government spending, the simplification of the taxation system and reforms in sectors that are key to the economy and have a high influence on the cost of living and doing business in the country. He said the country needed to return to the structural reform agenda that was abandoned in the 1990s.
www.crees.org.do/es/ensayo/deuda-publica-el-caso-de-la-republica-dominicana