The commercial exchange between Dominican Republic and China register a deficit balance of US$9,847 million from 2019 to January-February of the current 2022, because the figures for Dominican exports totaled US$761 million, while the imported value from the Asian country is US$10,608 million.
Analyzing these figures published by the General Directorate of Customs (DGA), the economist Luis H. Vargasconsiders that this deficit balance is “monumental” and attributes it largely to the low rates of productivity and competitiveness of the Dominican production system, to the execution of “harmful” monetary, fiscal, trade, and labor policies, and other factors.
It indicates that this deficit resulted from the sum of the following mercantile regimes: national (US$8,491 million or 86.23%), free trade zone (US$1,343 million or 13.64%) and re-export and temporary admission ($14 million or 0.13%).
It adds that these Dominican-Chinese balances in the red, in comparison with the global deficit of US$33,323 million of the Dominican economy with the rest of the world’s nations, comprised respectively as a total 29.55%, national (25.4%), free zone (4.03%) and others (0.04%).
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In the case of the first two months of 2022, the trade balance between the two nations showed a negative amount for the Dominican Republic of US$647.20 million; due to higher imports (US$707.04 million) than exports (US$59.84 million); that is, a coefficient of 11.82 or almost US$12 of purchase of goods from China for every dollar of sales made by the country.
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In the breakdown by geographic area, all eyes were on trade between China and Russia after the leaders of both countries strengthened their strategic partnership just weeks before Moscow launched its military attack on Ukraine, to which Beijing has reacted ambiguously, criticizing the sanctions and blaming the conflict on the United States.