Monday’s meeting of the Central Bank and IMF representatives.
Santo Domingo, May 8th. – A mission from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) considered on Monday that the Dominican economy was the most “dynamic” and “resilient” in the past two decades in Latin America, thanks to the good implementation of monetary policy. Strong financial policy and system and strong macro fundamentals.
According to a statement issued by the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic following the meeting held by the IMF delegation and the governor of the issuing entity, Hector Valdez Albizu, the head of the IMF mission, Emilio Fernandez-Corojedo, said that the economy of the Dominican Republic continues to show a positive, proactive view in regulating the financial system and supervision. It has a good business climate.
He noted that this is happening in the Dominican Republic despite a “very complex” international panorama affecting most economies, causing a slowdown in global economic activity.
For his part, Valdez Albizu explained to the IMF mission that the economy of the Caribbean country maintained a good dynamic in 2022, growing by 4.9%, driven by strong domestic demand and foreign exchange-generating activities, especially tourism.
He added, “The preliminary results for the first quarter of 2023 show that the monthly index of economic activity (IMAE) achieved an average year-on-year expansion of 1.4%, corresponding to the variance of 0.4% in January, 1.8% in February and 2.1%. In March ».
With regard to tourism, Valdez-Albizu explained that the most contributing activity to the GDP result in 2022 was that of hotels, bars and restaurants, with an annual expansion of 24.0% in real added value. value.
He noted that the sector’s prospects remain favorable, so that “if this trend continues, 7.8 million non-resident air passengers are expected to arrive by the end of 2023.”
He also explained that inflation has fallen from a maximum of 9.64% in April 2022 to 5.15% last April and that convergence with the target range of 4% ± 1% is expected in May.
During the meeting, they discussed the dynamics of the external sector and foreign exchange-generating activities, especially tourism, which generated revenues of approximately $8.5 billion last year and a growth of total exports by 10.5% year-on-year. 9.1% in free zones.
In addition, the flow of remittances exceeded $9,800 million and foreign direct investment exceeded $4,000 million, which contributed to the Dominican Republic recording foreign exchange earnings of about $39 thousand million in 2022. EFE