Dominican Republic solidifies maritime hub status

Santo Domingo.- For the Maritime Connectivity Index’s 2018 edition, calculated by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad), the country improves its score and positioning in the global and regional market, in 45 out of 176 economies evaluated and 6th in Latin America and the Caribbean, which surpasses Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and the Bahamas.

The country score of 39.4, historically the highest recorded score, with a year-on-year growth of 11% in the global ranking, the country improved four spots.

The Dominican Republic will continue to improve its maritime connectivity in the coming years as evidenced in some measures that have been used: the expansion of the ports at Barahona (southwest) and Manzanillo (northwest), the inclusion of new routes and destinations in the logistic services by sea and the expansion of some existing services.

Moreover, as part of the new actions are the longer office hours (from 7am to 10pm) in all foreign trade regulatory agencies; as well as new procedures to apply for the reimbursement of customs duties and charges of raw materials and intermediate goods imported by the exporter or third parties.

The Maritime Connectivity Index aims to measure the ability of nations to integrate into world trade on a large scale. This is done by evaluating 176 countries, based on 5 components; among them: the number of vessels, the total container transport capacity, the number of shipping companies, the maximum average number of vessels and the number of services.