Without much effort, this is how they rated the budget general of State from 2025 two economists locals who considered that the Government resorted to strategies from previous years to plan their finance.
According to the former deputy director of the General Directorate of Internal Taxes (DGII), Germania Montasthis budget It has the same structure as previous years; a tax pressure stagnant at 14%, a fiscal pressure of 15.3% (lower than 2024), a deficit balance of 3% of the gross domestic product (GDP) and the gross financing need close to 5% of GDP.
“I understand that the idea of Government was to present a project for 2025 with minimal effort and make adjustments once it had the necessary income attributable to the failed tax reform. But since you don’t have income additional, maintains a budget for 2025 with the same structure as other years,” he responded to Diario Libre.
The economist considered that some points about taking the decisions: “they estimate that income will grow at the pace of the economy (8.9%), while total programmed expenses increase by 1.8%; but unfortunately we continue with the trend of reducing capital expenses, which this time fall 13% compared to 2024, while current expenses grow only 2%. In this way, public investment will continue at its lowest levels for more than 50 years,” he noted.
Debt worries
A worrying element is that the expenses in interests by debt public, which total about 300,000 million pesos and those assigned to the Ministry of Education (4% of the GDP) are equivalent to half of the income estimated taxes.
“There are no important changes in sight that could mark differences between the two. budgets (2024-2025) and clearly there are some games that in one way or another remain unchanged, such as the payment of interests of the debt public, which by 2025 will be around 3.6% of the GDP,” the dean of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD) added to Diario Libre. Antonio Ciriaco.
Regarding public investment, he specified that a level in line with what the Dominican economy demands will not be reached, which should be between 4% and 5% of GDP. However, the estimate is only 2.6% of GDP, which reflects the lack of news in this regard.
An element that Ciriaco highlights is the addendum made to the budgetmainly to satisfy the requirements of the Dominican Medical College. “This implied an increase in allocations to sectors such as health and housing, offset by decreases in other areas and the rescheduling of works, which, in turn, will affect public investment. So the budget 2025 will be nothing new, without large increases in games key,” he added.
Both economists pointed out that the provisions of the fiscal responsibility rule established in Law 35-24 are met with respect to primary expenses, highlighting that these are reduced by 0.8% compared to the current 2024 budget. The objective of this law , approved in 2024, is to discipline public spending, especially primary spending, which according to regulations should grow, at most, 3% annually or, failing that, 3% plus inflation, he explained. Ciriaco.”If implemented, this mechanism could begin a process of controlling the public sector deficit and, as a consequence, reduce debt in the coming years. This would allow public debt to be stabilized at around 40% of GDP in the medium and long term,” said the economist.
