During an emotional ceremony for the 76th anniversary of the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic, Governor Héctor Valdez Albizu, revealed that the Dominican economy achieved the highest growth of the year, 3.1% BIB last September.
While the performance of the July-September quarter of this year was 2.6 %.
Valdez Albizu said that the accumulated growth in the first nine months (January-September) 2023 was 1.7 %.
Scoop: New liquidity of RD$40,000 million
The governor announced that this October the Monetary Board authorized a new liquidity facility for the construction, manufacturing, export, and agricultural sectors for RD$40 billion.
“Of these resources, as of October 19 the financial system has already channeled some RD$13,735 million,” he said.
He noted that because of these liquidity-enhancing measures, monetary aggregates have expanded, lending and deposit interest rates have fallen and private credit grew by 17% year-on-year in September.
Sector growth
In announcing that the monthly indicator of economic activity (IMAE) registered a year-on-year growth of 3.1 % in September 2023, he said that “the greatest contribution in January-September came from hotels, bars, and restaurants, which grew 10.9 %, maintaining the great dynamism exhibited throughout the year.
In September alone, the country received 478,792 tourists by air, accumulating a record 6,023,573 non-resident visitors during the first nine months of the year, with a hotel occupancy rate of 75%. If we add to this the more than 1,607,360 cruise passengers who visited the country in January-September, the total number of visitors reached 7,630,933, another historic milestone for tourism”, he added.
In September, construction activity also grew, registering an expansion of 9.5%, after negative records in the first months of this year. Agriculture and livestock grew 3.4 % year-on-year, for an increase of 3.8 % in January-September 2023.
“It is time to climb the rungs to development. As the famous author of Les Miserables, Victor Hugo, once said, “The future has many names. For the weak, it is the unattainable. For the fearful, it is the unknown. For the brave, it is an opportunity,” he said.
Measures
The Governor affirmed that inflation is within the target range of 4 % ±1 %, in spite of the highly complex situation. Regarding the measures adopted, he recalled that the Monetary Policy Rate has been lowered to 7.50 % and that the monetary aggregates have expanded, lending and deposit interest rates have fallen and credit to the private sector registered a year-on-year growth of 17 % in September.
Labor market
Valdez Albizu announced that the total number of employed reached its highest historical level of 4,855,631 workers in the July-September 2023 quarter, reflecting a remarkable creation of 222,497 jobs in year-on-year terms, according to the latest data from the Central Bank’s Continuous National Labor Force Survey (ENCFT). He said that the percentage of informality was reduced by 1.5 percentage points in the third quarter of 2023, dropping from 58.1 % in July-September 2022 to 56.7 % in the same period of 2023 and the open unemployment rate stood at 5.4 % for the third quarter of 2023.
Acknowledgment
The Governor of the BCRD emphasized that the international community has recognized as meritorious the Dominican economic performance this year, despite the unfavorable environment. In this regard, he noted that just a few days ago, Katie Taylor, director of the Pan American Development Foundation, an independent organization affiliated to the Organization of American States (OAS), said that the Dominican Republic “is a light in the hemisphere, with democratic stability, economic stability, and development”.
INFLATION
Inflation is within the target range of 4 % ±1 %.
Aggregates
As a result of the increase in liquidity, the circulating medium (M1) grew 11.2 % in September; M2, 17 %, and broad money, M3, 14.6 %.
External sector
The free trade zone sector grew 0.7% and tourism revenues 19.3%.
Projections
FDI is expected to exceed US$4,300 MM, more than US$11,200 MM in remittances, and GDP is expected to close at 3% and 5.2% in 2024.
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