The Central Bank of the Dominican Republic (BCRD), in the interest of keeping economic agents and the general public properly edified and as part of its commitment to transparency and timely disclosure of data, reports on the preliminary results of the economy as of October 2022 .
After the first ten months of the year have elapsed, the monthly indicator of economic activity (IMAE) registered an accumulated expansion of 5.2%, when compared with the same period of the previous year, after presenting an interannual variation of 3.8% in the month of october.
Monthly indicator of economic activity (IMAE)
Growth rates 2021 – 2022
In %
The trend that the Dominican economy has reflected throughout the year allows us to project that the expansion of the real gross domestic product (GDP) could be around 5.0% at the end of 2022, according to the results of the Central Bank forecast system after to incorporate the data for the month of October. It should be noted that said result would be materializing in an adverse international context, where risk factors prevail, highlighting the moderation in world economic growth projections and the restrictive stance of monetary policy in most of the world’s economies to control the behavior of inflation. In the Dominican case, inflation is expected to return to the target range of 4.0% ± 1%, before the end of the second quarter of 2023.
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Regarding the sectoral behavior during January-October 2022, the important incidence of services as a whole stands out, which constitute approximately 60.0% of the total economy and present an interannual variation of 7.0% in the referred period. Among the activities that comprise it, it is worth noting the performance of hotels, bars and restaurants (26.8%), health (10.7%), other service activities (8.7%), public administration (7.5%), transport and storage (7.1% ), trade (6.2%) and financial services (5.4%). Regarding agriculture, this exhibits a variation of 4.6%, while in industries, the activity of free zones grew 6.3%, local manufacturing 3.2% and construction 1.6%.
Monthly indicator of economic activity (IMAE)
Growth rates 2022 (%).
Activity Hotels, pubs and restaurants exhibited an average interannual variation of 26.8% in terms of real added value, contributing 1.4 percentage points (pp) to the growth of the IMAE of 5.2% in January-October 2022, that is, explaining a third of the growth in what has elapsed of the year The performance of this sector was driven by the external demand for the tourist services offered by the country, reflected in the arrival of 5.8 million visitors in the referred period, for an interannual variation of 55.5%.
This dynamism continued towards the month of november in which some 571,354 tourists were received, accumulating a total of 6.4 million non-resident passengers who entered the country by air in the first eleven months of 2022, thus achieving a historical record in arrivals for those months in one year, according to to the preliminary data offered by the Ministry of Tourism. Additionally, by adding the 1.1 million excursionists who arrived on cruise ships through the different ports of the country, a total of 7.5 million visitors is reached in January-November 2022.
Regarding construction, it presented an interannual variation of 1.6% in January-October 2022, a result that reflects a moderation in its growth rate, due to the combination of the substantial increase in the prices of materials such as cement, the rod, among others, used as an input in this activity, and a readjustment of construction schedules in the current context of rising interest rates. It is expected that the acceleration in public capital spending, through the execution of important civil engineering and infrastructure projects carried out by the Government, will help to offset the behavior of the sector.
In another order, the expansion in the value added in the activities of commerce (6.2%) and transport and storage (7.1%) is closely linked to the dynamism in the production, distribution and commercialization of agricultural and manufactured goods of local and imported origin. , as well as by the land flow of passengers. The joint contribution of these two activities to the growth of the IMAE for January-October was 1.3 percentage points, that is, approximately 25% of the interannual increase of 5.2% referred to above.
On the other hand, the real added value of manufacturing in free zones has registered an interannual variation of 6.3% in the first ten months of the year. During those months, this sector reached a level of exports of US$6,608.4 million, an additional US$649.1 million (10.9%). In relation to local manufacturing, this activity registered a growth of 3.2% in its real added value in January-October 2022 compared to the same period of the previous year. Particularly, a favorable performance was observed in the manufacture of chemical substances and products, the manufacture of beverages and tobacco derivatives, and other manufacturing industries.
Similarly, the agricultural sector has managed to maintain a positive performance by observing an interannual increase of 8.4% in the month of October, for an accumulated growth of 4.6% in January-October. This behavior has been supported by the appropriate measures implemented by the Government, through the Ministry of Agriculture and its dependencies, with the interest of providing technical and financial support to agricultural producers at the national level.
Working market
The results of the National Continuous Labor Force Survey (ENCFT) conducted during the third quarter of 2022 show that the total number of employed persons (including formal and informal workers) reached 4,633,135 workers, a level similar to that evidenced in the same quarter of 2019. , that is, to the total occupancy observed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this way, the employment rate, defined as the ratio between the total employed and the population of working age (PET), stood at 59.2%, 0.3 percentage points higher than that exhibited in the period July-September 2021.
Regarding the open unemployment rate, which is defined as the percentage of unemployed who are actively looking for work, it fell by 3.2 percentage points, from the 8.0% registered in January-March 2021 to 4.8% in July-September 2021. 2022, and by 2.0 percentage points when compared to the figure of 6.8% reported in July-September 2021.
Source: Continuous National Survey of Labor Force of the Central Bank.
Finally, even in the context of the challenging international situation, as can be seen, the results of the economy in the January-October period are favorable and keep the country an attractive destination for foreign direct investment. In this context, the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic reaffirms its commitment to conduct monetary policy towards achieving its inflation target and the proper functioning of the financial and payment systems.
