Santo Domingo.- Herrera and Santo Domingo Province IndustriesAssociation (AEIH) president Antonio Taveras on Monday demanded that the monetaryauthorities reveal who’s hogging dollars in the country.
The business leader said despite stable currency flow intothe country, there’s again been a shortage of US currency locally.
Taveras said he hears constant complaints from merchants whorequire dollars to restock inventories and make payments abroad, but find itdifficult to get even relatively small amounts.
He said the key indicators on foreign exchange inflow don’tjustify the situation. “The Central Bank itself, in foreign exchange earningsincreased by US$665.2 million, from US$22.3 billion in 2014 to US$23.0 billionin 2015.
He said in the shorter term, dollars entering the country jumpedby US$301.7 million in the first quarter. "This shows an accelerated growthrate of foreign exchange earnings, especially the 29.5% growth of ForeignDirect Investment, which increased from US$447.8 million to US$580.1 million inthe first quarter."
Taveras said another factor which leads him to suspect thatsomeone is distorting the dollar market is that during the first three months, tourismearning climbed 7.6%, from US$1.7 billion to US$1.8 billion.