The former director of the Budget, Luis Reyes, affirmed that despite the fact that the authorities speak of good macroeconomic performance, “the problem in the Dominican Republic is the deterioration of the population’s standard of living”, where every day there is a worse quality job .
“The job market is deteriorating. Last November, the country returned to the number of Social Security contributors it had in March 2019, in the pre-pandemic period,” Reyes pointed out.
He warned that in the main economies of the world: the United States, China and the European Union, in the best of cases there will be a slowdown and in the worst case a recessionwhich will affect the performance of the Dominican economy.
“In the statistics published by the Central Bank, it can already be seen that in the months of October and November the level of economic activity is slowing down,” Reyes said after pointing out that this would make it difficult to create quality jobs.
Interviewed in the program “Proposal of the night”, by RNN Channel 27, hosted by Manuel Jiménez, Reyes said that with the deterioration of the quality of employment, persistent inflation, one can only expect situations of disintegration of the social fabric that is expressed in more violence and crime.
He recalled that a few days ago the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, warned that the international environment will be less favorable for countries like the Dominican Republic.
Reyes said that the Dominican economy has been growing mainly due to tourism, free zones and remittances from Dominicans abroad, which if affected by a slowdown or international recession, will continue to deteriorate the standard of living of the population.
He stated that if this unfavorable international environment is added to the government’s budgetary limitations to go to solve problems in cities and neighborhoods, due to the high spending on subsidies and other fixed commitments.
He affirmed that in less than two and a half years, the administration of Luis Abinader and the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) have received disbursements for 13.2 billion of public debt, to which are added another 3 billion dollars for this year, “it will exceed the amount that the past administration (Danilo Medina) borrowed from 2012 to 2020. In just four years, (Abinader) would be doubling the level of indebtedness.”