The monthly indicator of economic activity (IMAE) registered a cumulative expansion of 5.2% during the first ten months of 2022, compared to the same period of the previous year, after presenting an interannual variation of 3.8% in October.
The information provided by the Central Bank (BCRD) highlights the important incidence of services in the growth of the IMAE in the first ten months, which constitute approximately el 60.0% of the total economy and present an interannual variation of 7.0% in the referred period.
Among these activities, 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%), commerce (6.2%) and financial services (5.4%).
Agriculture, he says, 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%.
Will close at 5.0%
According to the BCRD report, the trend that the Dominican economy has reflected in the course of the year allows us to project that the expansion of the real gross domestic product (GDP) could be located at 5.0% at the end of 2022according to the results of the Central Bank’s forecasting system after incorporating the data for October.
It specifies that this 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 inflation behavior.
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.
Activities
Hotels, bars and restaurants exhibited an average interannual variation of 26.8% in terms of real added value, contributing 1.4 percentage points 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 external demand from travel 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%, explains the BCRD.
This dynamism continued into November, when 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 preliminary data provided by the Ministry of Tourism.
Additionally, he adds, 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 in January-November 2022.
Regarding construction, this activity 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 readaptation of construction work schedules in the current context of interest rate rises.
other
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.
Meanwhile, the real added value of manufacturing in free zones has registered a year-on-year variation of 6.3% in the first ten months of the year. This sector reached a level of exports of US$6,608.4 million, an additional US$649.1 million (10.9%). Local manufacturing grew by 3.2% in its real value added in January-October 2022 with respect to the previous year.
low unemployment
The open unemployment rate fell by 3.2 percentage points, from the 8.0% registered in January-March 2021 to 4.8% in July-September 2022, and by 2.0 percentage points when compared to the figure of 6.8% reported in July- September 2021.
Working market
The total number of employed people (including formal and informal) reached 4,633,135 workers, similar to the same quarter of 2019, that is, to total employment prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.