The Central Bank has released a report with a glowing picture of the Dominican economy for 2018. Central Bank Governor Hector Valdez Albizu noted that the results of the latest figures show that the DR is the leading economy in Latin America as far as growth is concerned.
The Central Bank says the economy should close at around 7% GDP growth. The aforementioned value, estimated by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), is higher than the original estimated goal of five percent growth.
Dynamic sectors of the economy leading the growth are communications (11%), construction (10.6%), export free zones (9.1%), health (8.8%), commerce 8.5%, financial services (7.9%), sector that is most driving the expansion of the economy with 12% followed by construction with (10.6%), commerce (8.9%) and farming (6.5%), warehousing and transport (6.5%), domestic manufacturing (6%), energy and water (5.7%), hotels & restaurants (5.6%), among others.
Peso depreciation was kept under control with the exchange rate of 50.12 pesos for one dollar comparative to the estimated 50.17 to the dollar. Inflation is expected to end the year at 1.3%.
The Central Bank reports that Gross International Reserves (hard currencies), as of 26 December 2018 were US$7.2 billion, which equals about four months worth of imports.
Central Bank governor Valdez Albizu presented the report at an assembly of the top ranking officers of the bank. He detailed that according to preliminary numbers from the Monthly Economic Activity Index, the growth is the result of the 6.9% performance from January through September and a 7.1% performance in the last quarter of the year. The report noted that communications, construction and the free zones were all double-digit contributors to the growth, but health, commerce and financial services were all above the 7% level.
Another look at the economic performance by Pavel Isa Contreras is a bit more somber, but still highlights the solid GDP performance of the economy. Isa Contreras said growth had been forecasted to be between an optimistic 5.5% and a less positive 5.0% for the year, back in January. Isa Contreras says that a GDP growth of 6.5% is most likely. He sees just an 11.1% jobless rate among the economically active population. This is a continuation of a downward trend that began in 2014.
Regarding inflation and the exchange rate, Isa Contreras says that with the available data, he feels that inflation will not top 2% for the year.
Isa Contreras says that his analysis shows that there are three areas that contributed to the stable economy outcome: the tumble in oil prices since October; the containment by the Central Bank of the exchange rates that in turn allowed for the slow inflation and lesser devaluation of the Dominican peso and the Central Bank’s restrictive monetary policy. This is something Isa Contreras attributes to the tight reins the bank has on liquidity, as seen in the M1 (money in circulation) that in October was some RD$15 billion less than in June.
However, as an astute observer, the economist notes that a lot of all of this is due to maneuvers by the Central Bank involving more debt. The total debt of the Central Bank was pegged at RD$559 billion, more than RD$78.6 billion more than in 2017 and RD$85.7 billion more than in September of this year. As a result, interest rates are up.
The transportation secretary of the Social Christian Reformist Party (PRSC), Mario Diaz demanded to know just what the government is doing with the money it collects from traffic fines. He called for Franchesca de los Santos, the head of the National Traffic Institute (Intrant), to explain where the money is used.
He noted that the Law 63-17 allots 75% of the funds generated by traffic fines to the Attorney General’s Office, and the remaining 25% to fund Intrant.
Despite the passing of the new transit and traffic law in 2017, the Intrant has yet to file the draft for the implementation of the ruling that would put in effect the new regulations contemplated in the law. As a result, most of the efforts of the new agency are still in the planning stage.
The Center for Emergency Operations said 17 persons died over the Christmas holidays (24, 25 December 2018) in traffic accidents, of which in 16 of these a motorcyclist was involved. This is similar to the 15 deaths reported in 2017. The Center for Emergency Operations coordinated a major national effort for road safety over the holidays. With the participation of 39,233 people including volunteers, paramedics, medics, military and rescue specialists that worked from Sunday, 23 December through Christmas Day.
Presidents Trump and Medina have something in common: both have deployed thousands of troops on their country’s border. President Danilo Medina has authorized the stationing of 7,000 Dominican military personnel on the border with Haiti in an effort to halt illegal immigration. Some 600 new troops were dispatched to the border along with helicopters, speedboats to patrol the coastlines, 15 sturdy, off-road motorcycles to patrol the most remote areas, and all-terrain vehicles.
As reported by the government, the new deployment of military personnel supplements the 6,400 armed service men and women already stationed along the Haitian border since early March 2018. The plan called “The Joint Interagency Task Force ‘Frontier Fence’ is charged with stemming the illegal flow of persons, firearms, controlled substances and contraband across the border.
President Danilo Medina backed politicians who sought to divide the city of Santiago into two municipalities under two city governments. Medina and signed Law 65-18 that creates Santiago Oeste (Santiago West). The bill had met with widespread opposition by business, community, development, religious entities and the incumbent Santiago mayor that criticized the split saying it is uncalled for in regional plans and will just create more wasteful spending and would not contribute to problem solving. The law says that the new authorities for the municipal district are to be elected in the 2020 general election.
Recently, Santiago city mayor Abel Martinez had expressed he was backing the aspirations of former President Leonel Fernandez to run for a return to the presidency in 2020. Fernandez is seen as President Danilo Medina’s main obstacle in the case he decides to seek a third term.
Areas that will now fall in the new municipal district are:
La Parada 7, San Miguel, El Progreso; Cienfuegos Central, La Emboscada, Monte Rico, Nuevo Milenio, Brisa del Canal II, Barrio Duarte I, Barrio Duarte II, Barrio Duarte III, Los Rieles, La Paz, Ingenio Abajo, Pinar del Río, Mejía, San Lorenzo, Cerro de San Lorenzo, El Nazareno, Llanos del Ingenio. Also Ingenio Arriba, Reparto Villa Fe, La Unión, La Unión II, Monte Rico apartment buildings, Mella II, Cerro de Don Juan, La Torre del Mella I, Mella I apartments, Villa de San Lorenzo, El Fondo de la Botella, Monte Bonito, El Semillero I. Don Jaime, Alegría, Sector Ocho, El Tabaco, San Antonio, ensanche San Lorenzo, Valle Bonito, Alto Bonito, among others.
Recently, Nick Hard, a tennis talent from Sosúa, turned 18. As a junior player (under 18 years) he achieved 16th place in the ATP ranking. He now plays with the professionals who stand in the ranking between 700 and 300. Now he is already in 536th place after he has won another tournament in Santo Domingo. Sunday afternoon, December 30, he played demonstration games at the tennis court of Playa Chiquita in Sosúa.
Besides Nick Hard, also William Kirkman, Andrea Segarelli and Melvin Baez participated. An there were also some excellent young tennis talents participating in the event. Among others, there was a fantastic girl of 11 years and a boy of 13 years old, both from Russia, who really played very strong.
Nick Hard is a son of a Luxembourg father and Dominican mother and he is seen as the up and coming tennis talent for the Dominican Republic. Lucky for him, he has found some sponsors in Santo Domingo because the tennis sport is very expensive. Thanks to this sponsorship, he can go on training internship in the USA. He will soon play three professional tournaments in Florida. Then followed by a European tour in the summer where he will participate in a number of tennis tournaments. Nick also hopes to meet Roger Federer in Europe, because Federer is his hero.
They apprehended a Canadian national for attempting to have sex with a seven-year-old girl, with the consent of her father, who is also detained.
According to the police note, the police officers on duty in the municipality of Sosúa, in this province, detained Yvon Joseph Ghislain Gaudet, 69, and the father of the minor, whose name is omitted to protect her identity.
The detention of the foreigner occurred in a hotel located in Guatemala Street of the Sosúa batey, where he tried to commit the sexual crime, while the father of the girl was arrested in another hotel in the same locality.
The preliminary report of the fact says that the father of the minor had taken her to the Canadian’s room so that he had intimate relations with his daughter.
The National Police specified that the detainees are in control of the Public Ministry of Sosúa for the corresponding legal purposes.
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PUERTO PLATA.- The National Office of Meteorology (ONAMET) warns that due to current and anticipated weather conditions for the next 24 to 72 hours, the waves will become dangerous in the country, especially on the North coast.
This situation is caused by the anticyclonic circulation at several levels of the troposphere, a frontal system located in the north of the country in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean and the predominant wind of the east / northeast direction.
It is noticed that, from the first hours of this Thursday, December 27, from Montecristi to Punta Cana the marine waves could reach up to 10 feet of height and very likely there will be sea penetrations in areas of low areas prone to coastal flooding .
The expert in meteorology and communicator Jean Suriel, said that in the last days of 2018 the waves will be very dangerous on the Dominican coasts due to the influence of high pressure in the Atlantic, and between Friday and Sunday waves of up to 11 feet will be recorded. the east, 10 feet in the north and 9 feet in the southwest.
Suriel explained that the most significant swell will occur this Friday, December 28 and will last until Sunday the 30th, so all boats must remain in ports from this Thursday afternoon until next Tuesday.
The high pressure system will be strengthened, moderating the intensity of the wind, this will cause a gradual deterioration of the state of the sea, therefore, from tomorrow it is recommended to the fragile and small boats both on the Atlantic and Caribbean coast, to navigate near the coastal perimeter without venturing out to sea by abnormal winds and waves.
The political, social, environmental and economic chaos in Haiti continues to be probably the Dominican Republic’s greatest challenge. Instead of improving, nevertheless, over the years the situation in the neighboring country seems to be worsening as evidenced by a recent violent assault on an orphanage.
The Vatican News reported a brutal attack by armed men on the Kay pè Giuss orphanage manned by Italian nuns in the slum area of Waf Jeremie, Haiti. Sister Marcella Catozza told the Vatican News that the emergency situation in Haiti is “perennial.” The orphanage houses 146 children, including 30 that are seriously disabled, and receives around 400 day children. The shelter was founded after the 2010 earthquake.
During the assault, the armed bandits stole the power generator, sanitary material and the mattresses and all else they could take. Sister Marcella Catozza says the country is going towards the abyss, and the citizens are increasing being exposed to violence. We are not building anything that can guarantee a different future: we work as if we were always in an emergency. ”
“There is a lack resolve to change things,” said Sister Catozza. She has worked in Amazonia, Albania, Vietnam, but in the Caribbean country she finds almost insurmountable difficulties. The lack of interlocutors, for example, so much that they cannot call the police after the attacks, because “the police are afraid of bandits,” she explained. “There is no one to turn to, there is nothing objective: you change things in the running, every day, depending on the employee you find in the office. It’s like always having to continuously start over and the state does not help you,” she told the Vatican News.
She explained that the program Doctors without Borders, for example, is leaving the country: they have already closed three hospitals because the state has imposed on exorbitant taxes on the facilities. Doctors Without Borders ran free hospitals: now people do not know where to go. “This is the drama of this country: there is no will to change things,” she complained.
Joint efforts of the Dominican Republic and the European Union to establish a hospital in Haiti to reduce the demand of Haitians on the free public health system in the Dominican Republic has met with indifference on behalf of the Haitian authorities. The Dominican Republic shares more than 300 km border with Haiti.
