The Minister of Economy, Planning and Development, Pável Isa Contreras, highlighted the robustness of the Dominican economy, which in a difficult context has managed to reduce monetary poverty and increase employment.
Isa Contreras stated that a new Macroeconomic Framework will be published in the coming weeks, prepared by the Ministry of Economy, with the participation of the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance, and a distant projection of growth of 4.5% for 2023 is not foreseen, which is the last one that is available.
“I think it is robust growth in the context we are experiencing,” said Isa Contreras, interviewed by the team of the “El Gobierno de la Tarde” program, which is broadcast on the Z-101 FM station.
The Minister of Economy stated that “In this context, we have come out of this storm in which we have been unwrapped in the last two years.””, referring to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the price crisis regarding the war between Russia and Ukraine.
According to data recently published by the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Development, monetary poverty in the country fell 2.1 percentage points compared to 2021.
The minister stated that inflation is decliningwith which it is expected that it can favor lower interest rates in the coming months.
“I think there is optimism in the economic team that this inflation rate will continue to decline in the coming months and we will be able to return to a less restrictive monetary policy stance and lower interest rates in the second half of the year. , that is what is expected,” said the economist and researcher.
He University professor pointed out that the Ministry of Economy promotes very active work with communities at the municipal and provincial level for their empowerment. “An active and empowered citizenry is a citizenry that has positive effects on development,” he said.
The impulse of territorialization
Isa Contreras argued that in these two years of government, the territorialization of public policy has been promoted, which means building solutions with the people in the territory.
He expressed that as a concrete result it appears that close to 900 public investment projects consigned in the 2023 National Budget, 651 of them are the result of citizen demands collected by the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Development, through the Unique Registry of Territorial Citizen Demands.
Likewise, Isa Contreras highlighted the works that are carried out through the Territorial Cohesion Fund managed by the Ministry of Economy that finances small public investment projects in the 50 poorest municipalities and municipal districts in the country.
Said the complete portfolio of the Territorial Cohesion Fund is about RD$500 million. Isa Contreras pointed out that the effect of this fund is impressive with projects of two and three million pesos. She indicated that the projects are decided with the Ministry of Economy and are executed by the municipalities with the consensus of the communities.