Dominican tourism ducks flat line despite acute economic crisis

Several entrepreneurial associations in the Dominican Republic pointed to the good numbers posted by the local leisure industry and money remittances through most of this now waning year, amid skyrocketing inflation and a weaker national currency stacked up against the dollar.

The associations of free trade zones, commercial banks, exporters, hoteliers and restaurant owners now see eye to eye on the fact that the nation’s economy has been severely hit by an array of inner and outer factors that has made a cleft in living standards, according to a press release published Monday by the local media.

However, the same release asserts that “regardless of first-quarter jitters, the country’s banking system remains confident and its assets are now reckoned in the neighborhood of 70 billion pesos ($1.7 billion) for the first nine months of 2003.”

The predicaments of the local economy got worse off in May as the press dug out a $2.2 billion scam at the Intercontinental Bank (Baninter) that put Ramon Baez Figueroa, the bank’s major shareholder, behind bars.

The Baninter’s bankruptcy forced the government to ask the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout package that eventually evolved to a done deal last August.

As time rolled on, the National Bank of Credit (Bancredito) was sold to the owners of the Development Professional Bank –a part of businessman Leon Jimenez’s group- following a rash of buzzing rumors that drove a good deal of its customers to withdraw huge sums from the bank’s coffers.

Shortly after that, the Republic Bank of Trinidad & Tobago bought off nearly all shares of Banco Mercantil on the heels of solvency liabilities that had gone unchecked for quite some time.

In an “entrepreneurial message to the nation,” the associations consider that “in spite of overall economic weakening, tourism keeps coming on strong and putting good numbers on the board.” Between January and September this year, arrivals climbed 22 percent compared to the same span of time in 2002.

The Central Bank estimates hard-currency revenues will crack the $3 billion mark this year with a record high $3.1 billion.

In the same breath, the associations are confident that the country will rake in little more that $2.2 billion worth of money remittances this year, $321 million more than in 2002.

As far as free trade zones are concerned, this sector accrued 5.8 percent in the first quarter of 2003 compared to the same period of time the year before.

Economic woes for the Dominican economy have been almost permanent as a result of a weaker local currency to the dollar and a power crisis that’s causing long and often outages.