Economy October 16, 2017 | 1:56 pm

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Economy snowballs toward asphyxia: top industrialist

A. Taveras.. File

Santo Domingo.- Herrera and Santo Domingo Province Industries Association (AEIH) president, Antonio Taveras warned Sun. that the public debt burden is pushing the economy toward “asphyxia,” which could in the short term harm the fundamental stability achieved in recent years.

He said macroeconomic stability will be unfeasible in the medium term, with 42.5% of the Govt. revenue committed to service the debt. “The situation is even more complicated if one takes into account the Central Bank’s debt stock, which reached RD$479.0 billion as of October 11 this year and which only in interest payments required over RD$62.0 billion in 2016.”

Taveras said that by 2018, US$4.26 billion in financing will be needed to cover the gap of the deficit, much more than this year, which totals US$3.5 billion, which he called a “snowball.”

The business leader said with that scenario and the real external risks associated with likely increases in the cost of financing, interest rate variation, and rising fuel prices, “the economy’s vulnerability takes on more shape today.”

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