The decline of the Dominican economy has affected the overall performance of Central American economies, according to a report in today?s Diario Libre. The importance of the Dominican GDP with relation to the Central American economies is seen in the fact that economic growth for the region averaged just 2.1% when the total for 2002 was 2.6%. At the same time, the inflation rate of the Dominican Republic raised the overall level of the region to 15.5% for 2003, up from just 7.6% in 2002. While the DR reported an inflation rate of 42.7%, all of the Central American figures were single digit inflation, with El Salvador at only 2.5%.