Dominican+Republic+Econmics

Economics

The Dominican Republic is a major exporter to the united states and relies on tourism as well as some agricultural for their tobacco, sugar and coffee. The distribution of money in this country is the richest 10% controls nearly 40% of the countries money. And the lowest 10% holds only 1.5%. This country is very diverse and even in its housing and work potions there is a large diversity everywhere. The Dominican Republic uses the Dominican Peso. This is almost 40 pesos to the US dollar.
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The country in 2007 created their Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR), boosting investment and exports and reducing losses to the Asian garment industry. This was great for the country however, in 2008 the economy started slowing after growth for the country due to the global recession. This has impacted their remittances and a significant decrease in tourism. This created the Dominican Republic to dip into a recession in 2009 but is excepted to rebound before 2011 is over.

The country exports 54% to the US and nearly 10% to Haiti. They ship ferronickel, sugar, gold, silver, cocoa, tobacco, meats, coffee and other consumer goods. They import from the US (43%), Venezuela (7%), Mexico (6%), and Colombia (5.5%). These imports are usually food, petroleum, cotton and fabrics chemicals, pharmaceuticals.

The average household is many people in a home. This way they can pool the money and share their goods. They very rarely buy imported foods and eat plenty of rice and beans. The meat is often expensive and instead get protein from the beans in their diet. There is an unemployment rate of 15% and those employed are often in services. Of the labor force 63% are employed by services and 22% by industry. Industry for the Dominicans consist of their tourism, sugar processing, gold and ferronickle mining and working for textiles, cement and tobacco industries. They also provided the county with agriculture for their use and exporting. The farmers are almost 15% of the labor force. These farmers provided sugarcane, coffee, cotton, cocoa, tobacco, rice, beans, potatoes, corn, bananas, cattle, pigs, dairy products, beef, eggs and this is used for their family, community and then some is exported.

The people of the Dominican republic is sadly 42% below the poverty line. These people however are ones who take what they have and use it to the fullest and they generally work together to make what they do have last and what they dont have unimportant. (CIA World Factbook)


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